MNMi 


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V, 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSrir  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


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Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arcliive 

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littp://www.arcliive.org/details/euplirosyneliergolOOIawsiala 


€up|jrosjne  antj  Her 
"(Boltitn  MaoV 


and 


» 


By  ELSWORTH  LAWSON 


H.  S.  STONE  &  COMPANY 
CHICAGO    MDCCCCI 


COPYRIGHT     1901     BY 
HERBERT  S.  STONE  &  CO. 


I  DEDICATE  TO  W.  J.  DAWSON, 

POET,    PREACHER,    NOVELIST,    AND    CRITIC, 

ALL  THAT   APPROACHES    TO   BEAUTY    IN    THIS    LITTLE 

BOOK,  IN  GRATEFUL  RECOGNITION  OF 

THE   DAY  ON  WHICH  HE    STOOD  AT  THE  THRESHOLD 

OF   MY    MANHOOD,   WITH  NOBLE 

WORDS  OF   CHEER 

E.  L. 

MEXICO  CITY,  DECEMBER,  19OO 


€uplbtos|>ne  ant  ^er 

Contents 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 

Proem 

3 

I. 

The  Meeting 

9 

II. 

Castle  Building 

25 

III. 

The  Revelation  of  Love 

41 

IV. 

Love's  Dishonouring 

53 

V. 

The  "Golden  Book** 

73 

VI.    A  Paradise   w^ithout  a 

Serpent      ....      91 

VII.    Behind    the    "Flaming 

Barriers".       .       .       .111 

Epilogue  .      .      .      .      -137 


Ruphrosyne  and 
Her  ''Golden  BooF' 


Euphrosyne  and 
Her '-'■  Golden  Book"" 


HIS  little  book 
tells  how  I  met 
Euphrosyne  and 
how  she  parted 
from  me  forever 
— not  in  anger, 
but  with  love  in 
her  eyes  and  up- 
on her  lips.  It 
tells  also,  but 
with  great  omissions,  what  she  thought  and 
said  between  the  meeting  and  the  parting. 
If  the  reader  have  kindly  patience  until  he 
reach  the  end,  he  may  yet  say  it  is  no  story 
at  all.  In  that  matter  I,  Arthur  Stanilaus, 
can  offer  no  criticism,  because  to  me  this 
is  the  one  story  of  my  life. 

Of  course  Euphrosyne  was  not  her  bap- 
tismal   name,  but   the   one  I   gave  to   her 
because  of  the  joy  that  attended  her  whith- 
3 


(Eupi^toistne  anD 


ersoever  she  went.  What  her  actual  name 
was  can  be  of  no  interest  to  any  one  to-day, 
save  the  too  curious.  She  was  always  Eu- 
phrosyne  to  me;  and,  I  doubt  not,  she  bears 
that  name  still  among  those  to  whom  she 
has  gone.  It  seems  but  yesterday  that  we 
met — a  yesterday  of  fourteen  long  years, 
years  of  silence.  For  in  all  that  time  her 
name  has  never  once  passed  my  lips,  though 
every  July  I  read  once  again  in  that  won- 
derful book  she  loved  so  much. 

But  were  you  to  make  a  most  diligent 
search  throughout  my  library  you  would  not 
be  able  to  find  that  particular  copy,  for  both 
she  and  it  have  a  place  quite  apart  in  my 
life:  a  sacred,  hidden  place  like  unto  the 
secret  household  shrine  of  a  devotee  of 
strange  gods  in  a  strange  land;  a  place  one 
only  dares  enter  when  all  the  doors  and  win- 
dows which  communicate  with  the  alien,  outer 
world  are  fast  closed;  a  place  of  rich  benisons 
and  unutterable  visions;  a  place  of  many 
memories  and  prayers.  From  the  day  the 
book  was  put  into  my  hands  —  a  most  pre- 
cious gift  and  token  —  with  its  careful  under- 
lines and  its  naive  marginalia,  no  man  hath 


J^et  ^^(^olDen  l5oo&" 


ever  seen  it,  although  it  has  been  my  com- 
panion in  all  my  wanderings. 

If  you  are  in  search  of  strange  adventures, 
or  of  exciting  and  dramatic  incidents,  you 
had  better  not  read  any  further  here:  this 
story  is  not  for  you.  It  is  written  for  those 
who  have  loved  Love  in  the  days  long 
passed;  and  who,  in  rare  felicitous  moments, 
still  catch  visions  of  her  passing,  and  hear 
the  sound  of  her  unshod  feet;  and  for  those 
who  hold  with  "pious  obstinacy"  that  mo- 
tives and  endeavours  which  have  a  certain 
scrupulous  purity  and  high  dignity  about 
them  are  equal,  in  themselves,  to  great 
achievements:  even  when,  to  outward  seem- 
ing, life  lies  on  the  condemned  level  of  com- 
monplaceness. 


The  Meeting 


(Buv^to^^m 


The  Meeting 


H^One 


O  you  remem- 
ber,   Euphros- 


ync; 


in 


that 


mysterious  city 
whither  you  fled 
so  soon,  do  you 
remember  that 
July  morning 
when  you  and  I 
met?  Do  you 
still  remember  the  little,  lazy  Irish  town  near 
which  even  the  Atlantic  ebbed  and  flowed 
lazily;  and  our  confessed  surprise  that  the 
railway  station  could  boast  the  possession 
of  a  book-stall?  As  I  take  up  my  pen  to 
write  to  you,  who  will  never  see  the  writing, 
it  is  of  that  book-stall  I  think  first.  Amid 
the  confusion  of  a  late  arrival  my  imagina- 
tion had  glimpsed  the  ragged  rows  of  books. 
But  the  next  morning — that  morning!  —  I 
could  not  say  whether  I  had  or  only  fan- 


cied  that  I  had  seen  them,  so  must  needs 
satisfy  an  awakened  curiosity.  Yes,  my 
fancy  had  not  played  me  false;  there  was 
the  stall,  a  poor,  tottering,  loose -jointed 
thing  bowing  perilously  beneath  its  limited 
burden  of  books  and  magazines.  There, 
also,  like  a  shining  angel  clothed  in  white, 
stood  —  you.  Do  you  remember  turning  to 
look  at  me  as  I  came  through  the  narrow 
door  at  the  right  of  the  platform?  Then, 
because  I  stared  so,  the  rich  color  mounted 
your  cheeks,  encroaching  on  the  even  light 
of  your  large  gray  eyes,  until  the  shining  of 
your  face  and  the  shining  of  your  eyes  were 
together  far  too  wonderful  for  a  man  to  see 
unmoved. 

How  strangely  confused  we  both  were  as 
we  commenced  a  feverish  examination  of  the 
contents  of  the  stall!  Though  what  there 
could  be  about  my  uncomely  appearance  to 
disturb  you  I  have  never  been  able  even  to 
guess.  My  own  examination  was  a  decided 
failure,  for  I  did  not  see  the  name  of  a  single 
book.  I  picked  up  one  and  read,  "As  It 
Were  the  Face  of  an  Angel";  another  and 
read,  "  With  Open  Vision";  yet  another  and 


^n''(3olhm'hoor'  II 

read,  "  The  Pure  in  Heart."  I  knew  unques- 
tionably that  the  books  bore  no  such  titles, 
but  I  could  see  nothing  else.  And  now  that 
years  have  passed  over  my  head,  leaving  me 
prematurely  aged  and  gray,  and  although  I 
have  travelled  in  many  lands  and  seen  many 
wonderful  things,  those  three  titles,  which 
were  not,  have  ever  stayed  by  me,  so  that  I 
never  open  a  new  book  without  seeing  on  its 
title-page — your  face. 

Bending  over  the  books,  I  tried  fitfully  to 
analyze  what  I  had  seen  in  those  first  moments 
when  I  gazed  at  you  from  the  narrow  door- 
way. Seneca,  in  a  famous  letter,  writes  of 
the  "  conspicuous  chastity"  of  his  mother, 
and  I  knew  now  for  the  first  time  what  the 
phrase  could  be  made  to  mean.  But  it  was 
not  that  which  gave  the  peculiar  distinction 
to  your  face,  but  something  greater  which 
included  that  and  all  other  beautiful  things. 
It  was  Vision — that  same  bewildering  presence 
which  one  sees  in  fine  portraits  of  Dante, 
only  tempered  and  refined  by  the  woman's 
soul  in  you.  Yes,  Vision,  that  was  it;  an 
inexpressible  something  which  had  come 
from  a  higher  sphere  and  had  brought  the 


1 2  Cupi^toj^tne  anD 

mysteries,  the  secrets,  with  it  and  enshrined 
them  in  your  soul.  All  that  I  saw  without 
wholly  grasping  the  significance  of  it,  yet 
seeing  enough  to  be  dimly  aware  that,  all 
unconsciously,  I  had  passed  into  a  new  and 
superior  kingdom  of  the  spirit:  and  the 
knowledge  strangely  disquieted  me. 

While  vaguely  interrogating  my  conscious- 
ness for  some  method  of  introducing  myself, 
I  heard  you  say,  just  above  a  whisper  and 
with  a  surprised  catch  in  your  voice : 

"  Walter  Pater !" 

You  had  unearthed  a  soiled  magazine 
which  contained  one  of  those  delicate  "  Imag- 
inary Portraits"  of  his  —  "Sebastian  van 
Storck." 

Those  were  the  days  when  Mr.  Pater  was 
known  to  the  few,  days  when  he  was  honoured 
and  understood  by  a  little  company  of  read- 
ers in  a  manner  that,  perhaps,  cannot  occur 
again,  days  when  to  be  known  as  a  discern- 
ing lover  of  his  work  was  a  sufficient  passport 
to  many  a  friendship.  And  the  sound  of 
that  name  in  so  unlikely  a  spot  acted  like 
magic  on  my  senses.  It  was  as  if  one  found 
a   chart   at  the  entrance  to  an  unexplored 


region.  So  I  said,  with  an  abruptness  that 
redeemed  if  it  did  not  hide  the  commort- 
placeness  of  the  remark : 

"  So  Pater  is  a  favourite  of  yours !" 

"Oh,  yes;  I  read  everything  ofhis  that  I  can 
find,"  you  answered,  looking  up  and  smiling. 
"And  you—?" 

"I — I  reverence  him." 

I  do  not  know  precisely  what  happened 
next;  we  must  have  said  other  things,  but 
what  they  were  I  cannot  now  recall.  I  do 
know  that  in  a  few  minutes  we  were  walking 
out  of  the  railway  station  together  in  posses- 
sion of  the  magazine.  I  also  remember — for 
how  could  I  forget  ? — that  you  asked  me  not 
to  walk  so  quickly,  and  told  me  you  were  ill 
and  scarcely  expected  to  live  through  another 
winter. 

^  There  are  moments  in  life  when  knowledge 
passes  swiftly  from  one  soul  to  another  with- 
out speech  or  effort,  so  that  in  the  new  mys- 
tical intelligence  all  the  preceding  years  are  as 
though  they  had  not  been,  and  two  who 
were  strangers  until  then  step  together  into 
the  Holy  of  Holies  for  weal  or  woe.  Some- 
thing approaching  this  took  place  during  our 


14  €\xp\)xo^i^m  anD 

short  walk  from  the  station  to  the  shore, 
the  ordinariness  of  our  conversation  only 
veiling  the  deeper  commerce  of  our  souls.  I 
told  you  that  I  was  a  physician,  and  plied  you 
with  questions  concerning  yourself,  which 
were  so  merrily  answered  that,  doctor  though 
I  was,  for  the  moment  I  fancied  you  must 
have  deceived  yourself  as  to  the  extent  of 
your  malady.  Oh,  my  Euphrosyne,  it  was  I 
who  stood  deceived,  not  you !  Even  that 
short  walk  taxed  your  failing  strength,  and 
you  seemed  relieved  when  a -turning  in  the 
road  brought  us  abruptly  to  the  great  sea. 
You  pointed  out  your  favourite  resting-place 
among  the  rocks  where  "  some  giant  of  long 
ago  had  hewn  an  easy-chair  for  his  love,"  you 
told  me.  And  as  we  sat  together,  you  in 
the  chair  of  love  and  I  on  the  moss-like 
grass  at  your  feet,  we  read  "  Sebastian  van 
Storck" — or  rather  you  read  and  I  listened. 
I  am  hundreds  of  miles  from  those  rocks 
to-day,  and  shall  never  visit  them  again;  yet 
the  monotonous  murmur  of  the  sea  reaching 
out  before  us  towards  infinity,  the  long,  un- 
dulating stretch  of  wild  moorland  on  our 
right,  and  the  bleak,  ruggedly  naked  aspect 


^tv  ^^(0olDenl3oofe"  15 

of  all  visible  creation  (the  town  not  being 
seen  from  the  rocks)  are  with  me  still.  With 
me  also  is  the  sound  of  your  voice  as  I  heard 
it  that  morning.  The  clear  yet  almost  un- 
stressed manner  of  your  reading  accorded  so 
perfectly  with  the  stately,  elaborated,  and 
withal  beautiful  prose  of  the  author  that  one 
easily  imagined  you  were  reading  your  own 
work. 

On  reaching  the  end  of  the  story,  you 
turned  back  a  few  pages.  "  For  though  Se- 
bastian van  Storck  refused  to  travel,"  you 
read,  "  he  loved  the  distant — enjoyed  the 
sense  of  things  seen  from  a  distance,  carrying 
us,  as  on  wide  wings  of  space  itself,  far  out 
of  one's  actual  surrounding."  You  paused 
a  while,  and  I  ventured  to  remark  that 
Mr.  Pater's  own  literary  preferences  seemed 
to  lie  in  that  direction  also. 

"There  is  always  a  distinct  remoteness 
from  his  own  age  in  his  choice  of  subjects," 
I  said;  "a  remoteness  which  must  be  indi- 
vidual, and  of  deliberate  choosing,  for  it  ex- 
tends even  to  his  style,  which  is  more  Latin 
than  Teuton.  With  some  notable  excep- 
tions— Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  and  Rossetti, 


1 6  cBupi^Wi^ne  anD 

for  Instance — all  his  studies  are  of  men  re- 
moved from  us  by  distance  of  both  age  and 
place.  Marcus  Aurelius,  Watteau,  the  great 
portraits  of  the  Renaissance,  Euripides,  and 
Greek  sculpture  and  myths:  these  are  the 
persons  and  times  and  things  among  which 
he  loves  to  abide,  whose  spirit  and  ideals  he 
loves  to  interpret." 

"  I  think,  at  least  for  my  own  part,"  you 
answered,  letting  the  magazine  lie  on  your 
lap,  "  half  of  my  delight  in  him  is  because  of 
his  inability — which  must  have  arisen  through 
repeated  early  refusals — to  be  entirely  mod- 
ern. The  pure,  perfumed  atmosphere  of 
past  ages  and  sunnier  climes  seems  to  per- 
vade all  his  thoughts,  even  in  those  excepted 
essays,  literally  creating  his  expression  of 
them,  so  that  one  is  carried  *  far  out  of  one's 
actual  surrounding.* " 

"Yet  with  all  his  apparent  detachment 
from  the  present,"  I  argued,  "he  is  not 
oblivious  to  it;  perhaps  only  half  despises 
it,  or  thinks  he  does  and  longs  to  make  good 
his  escape  from  it.  But  when  on  occasion 
he  does  with  a  sudden  down-rush  touch  the 
living  present,  if  only  for  a  moment,  it  gives 


us  the  same  shock  of  felicitous  amazement 
that  we  experienced  a  while  ago  in  the  unex- 
pected discovery  that  Sebastian  lost  his  life 
in  a  thoroughly  human  effort  to  save  a  little 
child." 

We  talked  of  several  of  the  essays  and 
studies  that  had  already  appeared,  and  of 
"Marius,  the  Epicurean,"  scarcely  a  year 
old;  and  I  remember  that  you  noted  how 
dominant  was  the  fascination  that  restless, 
unsatisfied  dreamers  exercised  over  him. 

"In  his  own  way,"  I  said,  "he  realizes  as 
profoundly  as  Robert  Browning,  that  there 
is  nothing  of  greater  or  more  enduring  sig- 
nificance than  the  sincere  record  of  the 
development  of  a  soul.  But  the  souls  whose 
development  he  chooses  to  record  have  a 
peculiar  refinement  and  delicacy  about  them 
which  effectually  separate  them  from  all 
others  whose  inner  life  has  been  revealed  to 
us." 

"  Perhaps  they  have  a  very  true  and  close 
affinity  to  his  own  soul,"  you  said.  "  Some 
day  Montaigne  will  surely  lay  imperative 
hands  on  Mr.  Pater  and  demand  interpre- 
tation." 


1 8  (£up]^t:o0tne  anD 

"  Oh,  no ! "  This  was  said  with  emphasis, 
on  what  grounds  I  do  not  remember. 

"  But  I  feel  sure  of  it !  And  how  inter- 
esting it  will  be  to  see  in  what  manner  the 
irreconcilable  demons  that  dwelt  in  the  soul 
of  that  whimsical  and  intentional  sceptic  will 
impress  a  so  sensitive,  reverent,  and  essen- 
tially religious  spirit !  But,"  with  a  wistful 
gaze  far  over  the  sea,  "I  shall  not  be  here  to 
read  it." 

How  your  words  and  look  came  back  to 
me,  when  one  morning,  two  years  afterward, 
I  read  that  masterly  fifth  chapter  of  "  Gaston 
de  Latour."  And — both  your  predictions 
were  fulfilled — you  were  not  here  to  read  it* 

It  is  strange  how  much  of  this  first  con- 
versation comes  back  to  me  through  all  these 
years.  We  talked  no  more  of  Walter  Pater 
that  morning,  but  unconsciously  drifted  to 
personalities.  Do  you  remember,  Euphros- 
yne,  as  we  walked  slowly  towards  the  town, 
my  confessing  haltingly  to  a  foolish  thirst 
for  fame? — a  weakness  so  characteristic  of 
youth. 

"Why  not  rest  content,"  you  answered, 
"in  endeavouring  after  nobility  and  goodness. 


J^et:  ^'(15011101X05006"  19 

in  being  muy  simpaticOj  as  the  Spaniard  so 
wonderfully  phrases  it  ?  Fame  and  publicity 
are  by  no  means  unmixed  good.  I  imagine 
there  are  many  literary  and  other  famous 
men  and  women  who  would  go  back  (if  they 
might)  gladly  into  the  comparative  obscurity 
of  their  younger  days  when,  at  the  least,  they 
had  large  room  in  which  to  live  their  own 
lives  as  freely,  as  completely,  as  they  chose." 

"But,"  rather  inconsequently,  "a  doctor's 
sphere  of  influence  is  very  limited.  Besides, 
that  is  hardly  what  I  meant." 

Then  in  that  wonderfully  abrupt  way  of 
yours  which  I  learned  to  love  so  much,  you 
said,  "Well,  what  is  your  ideal  of  existence. 
Dr.  Stanilaus?" 

The  unexpected  sound  of  my  name  gave 
me  a  start,  for  I  had  not  been  sure  that  you 
had  even  heard  when  I  mentioned  it  on  the 
road  to  the  rocks.  For  a  moment  I  was  silent, 
then  delivered  myself  of  my  youthful  ideals 
in  breathless  haste. 

"To  my  vocation  I  would  add  an  avoca- 
tion. I  would  be  a  moral  and  intellectual 
force  in  achieved  literature.  I  would  write 
such  books  and  sing  such  songs  as  would 


20  (&nvtito^i^nt  and 

compel  the  greater  part  of  a  reluctant  people 
to  listen  —  and  grow  nobler  for  listening.  I 
would  do  this,  yet  all  the  while  personally 
lie  securely  hidden  from  the  avid  curiosity 
of  foolish  and  shallow  souls." 

This  appears  to-day  so  pertly  modest  that 
I  write  it  with  misgiving,  for  others  may  see 
in  it  what  you  did  not.  You  saw  only  the 
pure  enthusiasm  of  a  youth  not  wholly 
swamped  in  the  cynicism  of  the  dissecting- 
room;  and  you  responded,  half  dreamily,  I 
thought,  and  without  any  sense  of  the  incon- 
gruous. 

"Why,  that  would  be  like  unto  the  influ- 
ence of  God,  whom  no  man  hath  seen  at  any 
time;  whom  no  man,  surely,  can  hope  effect- 
ively to  imitate!  Even  those  'who  have 
shone  in  a  wondrous  way,'  to  quote  Marcus 
Aurelius,  have  not  accomplished  so  much." 

A  vast,  solemn  stillness  fell  upon  us,  and 
as  we  gazed  across  the  shining  waters  at 
our  feet,  once  again  it  seemed  our  souls  met 
and  in  the  silence  swore  eternal  fellowship. 
No  word  was  uttered  while  we  lingered  there, 
but  for  one  ineffable  moment  you  looked 
clear  into  my  eyes,  then  turned  suddenly 


^tf<5omni5oor'  21 

towards  a  cottage  a  short  distance  off,  sepa- 
rated from  the  shore  by  a  wide  road  and  its 
own  little  garden.  When  we  reached  the 
white  gate  which  I  instinctively  felt  was  to 
be  the  place  of  parting,  you  had  recovered 
from  the  strange  tumult  that  had  so  stirred 
our  souls  and  violated  the  outer  stillness. 

"See,"  you  cried,  merrily,  "this  is  the 
House  that  Jack  built,  where  dwells  the 
maiden  all  forlorn.  Good-bye  for  the  present, 
my  newly  found  friend."  You  spoke  rapidly 
then,  half  questioningly,  half  authoritatively, 
with  little  pauses  between  the  sentences.  "We 
shall  see  more  of  each  other.  .  .  .  Can  we 
not  read  *  Marius '  over  again,  .  .  .  and  to- 
gether? ...  It  is  my  *  Golden  Book.'  .  .  . 
I  should  like  to  ,  .  ,  Ah !  this  morning  .  .  . 
it  has  been  so  wonder-filled  ...  so  strange. 
.  .  .  We  will  meet  to-morrow!" 

"  Yes !  to-morrow.  Shall  it  be  at  the 
giant's  chair  P " 

You  nodded,  and  with  a  brief,  almost  con- 
vulsive, clasp  of  our  hands,  we  parted.  And 
the  things  of  the  last  few  hours  began  to 
strive  for  their  rightful  place  among  the  holy 
things  of  life. 


Castle- 


•  V     7  • 


Cupi^rojs^ne 


25 


Castle- 


*    t      7  • 


O  W  shall  I  write 
of  the  to-mor- 
row and  all  the 
to-morrows  that 
came  after  ?  We 
were  not  to  meet 
for  three  long, 
anxious  days; 
and  then  it  was 
notat  the  giant's 
chair,  but  in  your  own  sacred  chamber  we 
met,  for  you  were  too  weak  to  walk  abroad. 

But  on  the  afternoon  of  that  first  day 
I  had  no  presentiment  of  immediate  sorrow. 
I  was  filled  with  a  feverish  ecstasy  which 
no  physical  exertion  in  the  least  abated. 
What  had  befallen  me  that  morning?  Noth- 
ing, I  said,  with  a  positiveness  that  was  in 


26  €up]^ro0^ne  and 

itself  a  disavowal  of  the  negative.  What  had 
happened,  then  ?  So  I  noted  in  dispassionate 
review  the  events  of  the  morning.  But  such 
a  review  told  me  nothing.  Clearly,  dispas- 
sionateness was  not  the  medium  through 
which  such  startling  experiences  could  be 
interpreted.  There  was  naught  in  the  bare 
recital  of  actual  incidents,  of  actual  words, 
to  account  for  the  faintness  and  excessive 
trembling  that  almost  mastered  me  now  that 
I  was  alone.  What  was  the  meaning  of  it  all  ? 
I  knew  even  then  what  the  final  answer  must 
be,  but  persisted  in  a  refusal  to  see  it.  How 
could  I  do  otherwise?  The  common  tragedy 
of  a  thousand  homes  was  an  open  scroll 
to  me.  I  had  stood  in  the  presence  of  pain 
and  sorrow,  noting  often  the  indifference 
of  husband  to  wife,  of  wife  to  husband;  and 
had  made  declaration  many  times  of  my  utter 
disbelief  in  the  existence  of  love  as  the  poets 
sang  of  it.  And  now — what?  A  singular  con- 
sciousness of  compulsion  drove  me  towards 
acknowledgment.  I  knew  that,  for  good  or  ill, 
love  had  come  to  me,  and  I  had  received  her 
unresistingly;  and  the  knowledge  brought 
with  it  once  more  a  mysterious,  unexpected 


^n  ^^  <5oMn  13006 ''  27 

sensation  closely  akin  to  terror,  but  accom- 
panied now  by  a  definite  sense  of  spiritual 
luxury  and  rapture. 

Early  next  morning  I  was  at  the  trysting- 
chair,  restless  and  melancholy.  The  future 
has  for  me  nothing  of  the  inspiring  fascina- 
tion about  it  which  it  seems  to  have  for 
so  many  other  meditative  persons.  When 
it  does  intrude  its  shadowy  presence  near 
me,  it  seems  peopled  rather  with  ogres  than 
with  angels,  and  fills  me  with  an  expectation 
of  possible  calamities  rather  than  of  "  sweet 
discoveries."  And  to-day  the  future  became 
urgent  in  its  demand  for  attention  —  the 
steadier  my  refusal  to  speculate,  the  more 
insistently  its  dim,  inscrutable  face  appeared 
before  me.  For  a  little  while  a  measure 
of  relief  came  to  me  through  watching  the 
reluctant  retreat  of  the  tide,  and  in  planting 
an  imaginary  stick  in  the  sand  I  could  not 
see  and  murmuring,  "When  the  tide  goes 
beyond  that  point,  she  will  come."  Four 
times,  in  fancy,  I  removed  my  divining-rod; 
four  times  I  said,  "She  will  surely  come." 
But  you  came  not.  So,  wondering  greatly, 
I  started  to  retrace  step  by  step  the  path 


28  Cupl^roisttte  and 

we  had  trod  together  the  morning  before. 
Little  by  Httle,  if  the  future  did  not  shape 
itself  satisfactorily,  the  present  became  more 
clearly  and  directly  legible.  Very  many  things 
remained  enshrouded,  but  one  thing  was  true 
and  plain:  whatever  the  result  might  be, 
1  loved  you  with  that  love  a  man  knows  but 
once  in  life,  and  whether  I  won  you  or  lost 
you,  yours  I  was  to  use  as  you  pleased.  All 
the  ecstasy  which  had  been  banished,  leaving 
me  uncomforted,  came  back  hke  the  sudden 
sun  on  an  April  day.  What  did  the  future 
matter?  The  soul,  I  thought,  stands  erect 
in  the  love  it  bestows,  and  not  in  any  love 
that  might  or  might  not  come  to  it  from 
without.  And  my  love,  full-grown  in  a  night 
—  for  so  it  seemed  to  my  unaccustomed 
senses  —  was  to  be  laid  at  your  feet,  there 
to  stay.  I  stood  still  a  moment  watch- 
ing the  receding  waves,  then  repeated  half- 
aloud: 

"  But  laid  at  your  feet, 
That  which  was  weak  shall  be  strong, 
That  which  was  cold  shall  take  fire, 
That  which  was  bitter  be  sweet." 


My  meditations  were  suddenly  interrupted 
by  the  vision  of  a  little  maid  veritably  aure- 
oled  in  golden  hair.  She  was  coming  up  the 
hillock  which  separated  the  shore  from  the 
moorland,  and  shading  her  eyes  with  her 
left  hand,  was  gazing  in  my  direction  as 
if  in  search  of  some  one.  She  walked  in 
the  firm  and  alert  manner  so  characteristic 
of  North-Country  maidens.  The  wind  catch- 
ing her  hair,  lifted  it  up,  flaunting  it  in  the 
face  of  the  sun,  as  though  with  joyous  laughter 
it  bade  him  look  at  an  earthly  glory  which 
could  challenge  his  own.  And  in  very  truth, 
of  all  the  earth-born  things  mine  eyes  ever 
rested  upon,  none  were  sunnier  than  that  fair, 
merry  maid  bathed  in  the  morning  light. 
She  looked  at  me  several  times  hesitatingly 
as  she  advanced,  and  at  last,  apparently  satis- 
fied, came  straight  towards  me,  and  I  learned 
what  I  had  already  guessed,  that  she  had  come 
from  you.  I  learned  also  that  you  were  ill, 
and  could  not  leave  your  room.  No!  not 
very  ill,  I  was  given  to  understand  on  cross- 
examination,  but  you  had  caught  a  slight  cold 
yesterday.     She   had   spoken  mechanically, 


30  Cupi^rois^ne  auD 

as  if  repeating  what  had  been  told  her.  Then 
most  unexpectedly  large  tears  rolled  down  her 
dimpled  cheeks. 

"  Oh,  sir,"  she  exclaimed,  amid  her  sobs, 
"  my  mistress  is  dying,  dying,  and  nothing 
seems  to  do  her  good.  She  has  been  getting 
worse  and  worse  for  the  last  two  years. 
Can't  you  do  something?" 

After  I  had  somewhat  quieted  her,  she 
told  me  that  she  had  been  with  you  for  four 
years,  ever  since  your  last  visit  to  Yorkshire; 
that  she  worshipped  you  with  all  her  heart. 
She  said  your  father  had  died  just  two  years 
ago.  She  did  not  know  when  your  mother 
had  died,  but  it  was  long  before  she  entered 
into  your  service.  Yes,  you  were  utterly 
alone,  she  said  on  my  asking  her.  You  had 
not  a  relative  in  the  whole  world,  she  thought. 
Here  her  sobs  and  tears  became  so  tempes- 
tuous, and  her  sentences  so  incoherent,  that 
all  I  could  do  was  to  pacify  her  once  more 
and  send  her  back  to  you  with  the  assur- 
ance that  I  would  follow  later,  which  she 
took  to  mean  a  possibility  of  improvement 
in  her  dear  mistress.  And  I — well,  I  had 
not  the  heart  to  tell   her  what  I  began  to 


fear  with  a  great  fear,  that  neither  I  nor 
any  other  doctor  could  be  of  use  to  you 
now. 

The  little  maid  went  tripping  down  the 
hill,  and  I,  with  bowed  head  and  heavy  heart, 
walked  back  to  the  town.  Buying  a  few 
fragrant  roses  and  some  rich  grapes,  I  sent 
them  to  you,  with  a  formal  note  of  inquiry ; 
then  locked  the  door  of  my  room  and  sat 
down  to  think. 

There  are  certain  moments  in  life  wherein 
a  man,  if  he  be  valiant,  takes  hold  of  the 
future  with  all  his  might,  headily  expectant 
that  God  will  decipher  things  aright  through 
him.  On  retrospection,  such  moments  are 
recognized  as  being  of  the  nature  of  a  crisis. 
Just  such  a  crisis  now  approached.  All 
things  seemed  to  have  changed  during  the 
last  hour,  yet  in  reality  they  remained  as 
they  had  ever  been.  The  only  difference  lay 
in  my  attitude  towards  them.  The  know- 
ledge which  I  had  put  far  from  my  thoughts 
before,  I  now  faced ;  and  the  realization  that 
the  probabilities  were  strongly  against  your 
living  many  months  came  upon  me  with 
greater  force.     I  grew  subtly  conscious  of  a 


32  Cupi^roistne  anD 

warring  of  hardly  articulated  thoughts,  the 
very  mistiness  of  which  was  an  added  distress. 
At  one  moment  I  seemed  to  be  ransacking 
memory  for  something  I  could  not  define;  at 
another  I  was  plunging  frantically  into  unex- 
plored caverns  of  my  being  and  finding  them 
peopled  with  shadows  of  things  never  to  be 
actualized.  And  the  sense  of  appalling  help- 
lessness, of  being,  as  it  were,  in  a  region 
hitherto  sedulously  avoided,  and  of  which  I 
had  neither  map  nor  guide,  robbed  me  of  the 
last  remnants  of  volitiency. 

Slowly  the  strain  relaxed.  The  assurance 
that  an  easy  adjustment  lay  in  my  own  hands 
danced,  like  a  living  thing,  across  my  brain. 
Nothing  had  been  said  to  you,  not  even 
vaguely  hinted;  I  was  as  free  as  the  seagull 
that  flew  crying  past  the  window.  I  could 
go  away  now,  and  forever :  go  inland  like  the 
gull  at  presage  of  violent  storms.  Then  yes- 
terday would  be  nothing  more  than  a  beauti- 
ful, idyllic  vision.  .  .  .  Would  it?  Nay, 
but  like  that  same  seagull  I  should  pine  for 
the  coast  and  what  it  held  for  me,  and  would 
be  driven  back  again  by  the  vehemence  of 
irrepressible  yearnings.      Besides,  I  was  rap- 


1$tv  ^^(Bolhm  1300fe''  33 

idly  discovering  that  whether  I  went  or 
stayed,  the  future  had  already  resolved  itself 
into  ineluctable,  if  still  distant,  history ;  his- 
tory which  my  puny  attempts  at  interference 
could  in  no  wise  avert. 

"  If  one  advances  confidently  in  the  direc- 
tion of  his  dreams,  and  endeavours  to  live  the 
life  he  has  imagined,  he  will  meet  with  a  suc- 
cess unexpected  in  common  hours.  He  will 
put  some  things  behind,  will  pass  an  invisible 
boundary;  new,  universal,  and  more  liberal 
laws  will  begin  to  establish  themselves  around 
and  within  him;  or  the  old  laws  will  be  ex- 
panded in  his  favour  in  a  more  liberal  sense, 
and  he  will  live  with  the  license  of  a  higher 
order  of  beings.  In  proportion  as  he  sim- 
plifies his  life,  the  laws  of  the  universal  will 
appear  less  complex,  and  solitude  will  not  be 
solitude,  nor  poverty  poverty,  nor  weakness 
weakness.  If  you  have  built  castles  in  the 
air,  your  work  need  not  be  lost — that  is  where 
they  should  be;  now  put  the  foundations 
under  them." 

Where  had  I  read  that?  And  what  made 
it  come  to  me  now  with  so  clear  an  accentua- 


34  €up]^ro0tne  and 

tion  ?  It  was  as  though  some  one  stood  close 
behind  me  whispering  the  words  in  my  ear. 
How  strange  that  my  memory  should  have 
retained  it  —  and  so  perfectly  !  Only  a  small 
portion  of  it  could  be  applicable  to  the  situa- 
tion in  which  I  found  myself;  but  where 
could  I  have  read  it?  Ah,  now  I  remem- 
bered ;  it  was  from  a  little  volume  of  Tho- 
reau's  which  I  had  read  only  a  few  days  before 
leaving  home :  Thoreau,  that  embodiment 
of  philosophical  contradictions ;  Thoreau, 
who  could  imagine  himself  a  reincarnated 
primitive  woodman  in  a  primitive  solitude 
when  within  call  of  a  vulgar,  modern  city ! 

But  what  had  those  beautiful  sentences  to 
do  with  me?  It  must  have  been  the  "cas- 
tles in  the  air"  that  had  brought  them  to 
my  mind.  I  had  been  building  with  a  ven- 
geance !  What  did  Thoreau  mean  by,  "  Now 
put  the  foundations  under  them  "  ?  Suppos- 
ing one  saw  the  foundations,  upon  which 
alone  one's  castles  (in  the  air  or  on  the  earth) 
could  be  effectively  erected,  slowly  crumbling 
to  pieces ;  and  supposing  one  to  be  wholly 
helpless  to  prevent  such  disaster — what  then? 
I  laughed  aloud  at  the  mental  picture  in  such 


sudden  activity  before  me  —  a  bitter,  fearful 
laugh  —  as  I  remember  once,  when  a  little 
boy,  laughing  with  sheer  fright  at  a  falling 
factory  chimney :  now,  as  then,  uncontrol- 
lable weeping  followed  the  laughter. 

When  the  emotion  had  exhausted  itself,  I 
got  up  and  began  to  pace  the  floor.  It  was 
certain  that  one  "  invisible  boundary "  had 
been  passed,  that  I  was  in  another  spiritual 
country,  and  I  could  not,  however  the  long- 
ing might  possess  me,  retrace  my  steps.  "If 
one  advances  confidently  in  the  direction  of 
his  dreams"  —  that  was  the  only  thing  then 
left  for  me :  to  advance !  Perhaps  there 
would  be,  in  this  case,  that  certain  expansion 
of  the  old  laws,  or  an  establishment  of  new, 
unknown  ones ;  and  as  a  direct  effect  I  also 
might  find  my  castle-building  not  wholly  in 
vain,  not  wholly  "lost."  In  what  direction 
any  partial  compensation  could  appear  it  was 
not  possible  for  me  to  conceive  at  that  mo- 
ment. Anyhow,  I  would  advance — and  God 
guide  us  rightly,  I  prayed.  The  uncon- 
scious use  of  the  plural  pronoun  arrested  my 
thought:  already  I  knew,  then,  what  I 
would  do. 


36  Cup]^roj3^ne  anD 

Here  a  sharp  knocking  at  the  door  startled 
me  out  of  my  dreamings.  It  was  only  the 
hotel-boy,  but  he  held  a  small  envelope  in 
his  hand,  which  I  saw  instantly  had  not  come 
through  the  post-office. 

"A  letter  for  you,  sir,"  he  said,  touching 
his  ribboned  cap,  and  holding  out  his  pre- 
cious burden  at  arm's  length. 

I  trembled  so  violently  as  I  took  the  note 
from  him  that  I  was  glad  he  turned  hurriedly 
away.  A  letter  with  no  stamp  on  it  could 
be  from  no  one  but  you,  I  thought.  And  I 
was  right.  It  was  only  a  few  pencilled  lines 
expressive  of  your  surprise  and  delight  at  my 
little  gift  of  flowers  and  fruit,  and  saying  you 
hoped  to  be  out  in  a  few  days.  Of  the  flow- 
ers, you  said  they  were  the  illuminated  lan- 
guage of  God's  love,  and  that  they  spake  to 
you  of  His  tender  joy  in  humanity.  There 
were  only  eight  lines  in  all  —  a  note  a  stranger 
might  have  written  —  yet  I  breathed  heavily 
while  I  read  them,  as  though  they  had  been 
a  confession  of  love.  And  taking  my  writ- 
ing-case, I  left  the  hotel  and  walked  with 
rapid,  feverish  strides  to  the  great  chair  of 
love  among  the  rocks.      There  I  wrote  to 


you,  or  commenced  the  writing,  for  it  proved 
impossible  to  say  all  I  meant  you  to  know 
at  one  sitting.  The  second  part  of  it  was 
written  in  the  night,  then  finished  the  next 
morning,  where  it  had  been  begun,  within 
hearing  of  the  rhythmic  sigh  of  the  receding 
waves. 

Of  what  I  wrote  I  remember  nothing  to- 
day, except  its  intention  to  be  a  confession 
of  my  past  life  and  of  my  present  love.  It 
must  have  been  a  very  confused  and  inco- 
herent document,  but  it  told  you  in  its  own 
blundering  and  voluble  manner  the  secrets 
of  a  soul.  I  kept  it  by  me  until  evening, 
when  the  sun  had  gone  down  and  the  sea 
itself  seemed  at  rest.  Then  with  some 
grapes  and  wine  the  letter  was  sent  on  its 
fateful  mission.  I  watched  the  man  who 
bore  it  till  he  passed  within  the  white  gate, 
and  with  an  intolerable  faintness  at  my  heart, 
I  started  at  a  fearful  pace  for  the  moorland. 
It  must  have  been  late  when  I  returned  to 
the  hotel  (though  of  what  I  had  done  in  the 
mean  time  I  have  now  no  recollection),  for 
everybody  was  in  bed  except  a  couple  of 
men-servants. 


38  (i^up]^ro0i?ne 

I  was  thoroughly  wearied,  and  slept 
soundly,  not  rising  until  nearly  ten  o'clock. 
At  breakfast  I  inquired  for  letters ;  there 
were  several,  but  not  one  from  you.  I  was 
too  restless  to  read,  too  restless  even  to 
write,  so  I  strolled  about  the  town  for  an 
hour;  I  felt  that  I  could  not  go  to  the  rocks 
again,  at  least  without  you.  On  returning,  I 
immediately  noticed  a  little  envelope  stuck 
in  the  strings  of  the  letter-rack.  I  knew  it, 
knew  the  writing,  and  bounded  upstairs  to 
read  it.  It  contained  only  two  words,  a  fig- 
ure and  an  initial;  but  the  reading  turned 
me  dizzy,  and  for  a  few  minutes  I  had  to  hold 
hard  to  the  table  lest  I  should  fall.     This 

was  what  I  read :     "  Come  at  4.     E ." 

I  had  ventured  to  name  you  in  my  letter 
"The  Lady  of  Joy:  Euphrosyne,"  and  you 
had  accepted  the  name. 


The  Revelation 
of  Love 


€up]^roj2i^ne 


41 


The  Revelation 
of  Love 


Hi'Three 


S  from  some  far- 
ofF  and  unseen 
dwelling,  a  deli- 
cate fragrance 
of  remembered 
woodbine  and 
wild  briar-rose 
creeps  into  my 
room  as  I  write. 
I  know  from 
whence  it  comes :  the  breath  of  the  sea 
mingles  with  it,  and  I  hear  the  sound  of  a 
sobbing  wave  as  it  bows  its  foam-crested  head 
for  a  fall.  The  fragrance  fills  the  room,  in- 
vading the  close  sanctuary  of  the  soul ;  it 
stirs  into  lovely  life  ten  thousand  entombed 
memories;  it  peoples  my  solitude  with  a 
million  messages  of  the  past — a  variant,  pro- 


42  Cupi^rojsi^ne  and 

fuse,  unforgetable  past ! — a  past  which  is  ever 
a  present.  The  little  cottage  a  short  field's- 
breadth  from  the  shore;  its  tiny,  well-kept 
garden;  its  encircling  low  wall  so  thickly 
clothed  in  honeysuckle ;  the  straight,  narrow 
path  from  gate  to  porch,  bordered  on  either 
side  by  wild  briar,  all  the  sweeter  for  the 
daily  kiss  of  the  sea:  these  are  my  eternal 
possessions,  for  they  have  passed  into  the 
kingdom  of  memory  where  none  can  disturb 
them. 

An  atmosphere  more  chaste  than  that  of 
a  nunnery,  more  peaceful  than  that  of  a  ven- 
erable minster,  but  with  no  hint  of  the 
claustral,  the  unearthly,  the  impertinently 
saintly,  clung  about  the  whole  place,  giving 
to  it  a  peculiar  distinction,  so  that  men  and 
women  felt  instinctively  as  they  passed  its 
white  gate  that  it  might  well  be  the  chosen 
abiding-place  of  angels.  To  sin  amid  such 
surroundings  could  only  be  possible,  one 
would  fancy,  to  a  soul  given  over  to  Satan. 

It  was  towards  that  cottage  I  bent  my 
steps  that  evening  so  long  ago.  For  there 
you  dwelt,  my  Euphrosyne,  and  there  you 
had  bid  me  come.     As  I  lifted  the  latch  of 


l^er  ^^(0olDen  13006'*  43 

the  gate,  it  was  as  if  I  were  going  to  God. 
There  was  no  taint  of  blasphemy  in  my 
thought,  for  the  barriers  that  evil-minded 
men  would  erect  between  love  and  God  have 
ever  been  to  me  an  impertinent  intrusion. 
As  near  to  the  spiritual  as  a  man  may  be 
in  his  love,  I  was  as  I  entered  your  cottage 
that  evening.  The  lust  of  mere  possession, 
which  so  many  men,  to  their  undoing,  mis- 
take for  love,  had  no  part  or  lot  in  me. 
This  I  say  knowing  what  I  say.  Love,  in- 
deed, was  a  consuming  fire,  and  the  clarify- 
ing flame  swept  through  my  being.  I  had 
no  thoughts  for  aught  save  what  was  to 
come,  and  scarcely  noticed  the  happy  golden- 
haired  maid  who  opened  the  door  for  me. 
My  one  desire  was  to  stand  before  you  long 
enough  to  say  what  I  had  already  written, 
even  though  the  next  moment  I  should  have 
to  turn  my  back  upon  you  and  see  you  no 
more  forever.  So  at  last  I  stood  in  your 
presence  greatly  wondering. 

You  were  seated  in  a  low  arm-chair  which 
had  been  pushed  close  to  the  window,  and 
I  noted  immediately  how  pale  your  face  was ; 
but  there  was  not  in  any  single  delicate  line 


44  €\xp\)to^^m  ann 

of  it  that  weary  expression  of  suffering  which 
I  was  accustomed  to  see  in  the  faces  of  those 
whose  sickness  was  constant.  It  was  the 
same  calm,  spiritual  face  which  had  so  startled 
me  at  the  book-stall,  now  thrown  into 
striking  relief  by  your  beautiful  hair  and 
the  dark  robe  of  clinging  cashmere  you 
wore.  I  think  your  hair  had  been  coiled  in 
a  loose  knot  behind,  but  it  fell  luxuriantly  in 
soft,  brown  wavelets  about  your  face,  the 
marvellous  grace  and  loveliness  of  which,  set 
in  such  a  living  shadow,  reminded  me — only 
to  be  struck  again  by  the  infinite  difference — 
of  one  of  Leonardo's  wonderful  faces  in  red 
chalk  at  the  Louvre. 

I  stood  motionless  in  the  doorway,  over- 
come with  awe  and  an  unaccountable  fear 
that  once  again  pressed  close  upon  my  heart. 
Then  you  turned  toward  me,  and  it  seemed 
as  if  your  every  particular  hair  caught  and 
claimed  the  sunshine  for  its  own.  It  is 
certain  that  the  room  itself  was  flooded  with 
light,  that  your  eyes  glowed  and  faded, 
gleamed  and  paled,  as  I  never  believed  human 
eyes  could  do.  But  how  measure  the  strange 
influences  of  that  moment }  how  tell  precisely 


the  unique  impression  stamped  upon  the 
soul  ?  If  one  could  find  direct  and  complete 
expression,  he  would  hold  the  true  secret  of 
style;  and  alas,  that  secret  flees  ever  from 
me !  To  this  day  I  see  you  as  clearly  as 
I  saw  you  then,  but  any  attempt  to  describe 
what  I  see  is  to  court  a  signal  failure.  I  had 
often  wondered  since  that  first  morning  what 
you  would  look  like  under  the  influence  of 
a  great  and  pure  passion,  and  now  I  saw,  and 
the  sight  awed  me,  troubled  me  so  that  I 
trembled  exceedingly.  All  the  sweet,  fair 
things  I  had  intended  tp  say  played  sudden 
truant.  I  felt  myself  encompassed  around 
and  about  by  new  and  wholly  unimagined 
influences ;  nothing  in  all  my  past  experience 
and  knowledge  had  prepared  me  in  the  least 
for  that  moment.  It  was  the  revelation  of 
love,  and  it  made  me  afraid. 

Suddenly  you  held  out  your  arms;  and 
from  your  lips,  with  a  low,  full  resonance  that 
only  an  absolutely-  virgin  passion  gives, 
leaped  but  one  word: 

"  Beloved !" 

It  reached  me  where  I  stood,  and  struck 
with  all  its  might  upon  the  tense  chords  of  my 


46  Cupi^tojstne  anD 

being.  Everything  was  forgotten  but  the 
sound  of  that  word.  I  passed  swiftly  across 
the  room  and  knelt  at  your  feet,  weeping  and 
sobbing  excessively.  And  that  was  our  love- 
making  ! 

As  I  write  I  feel  once  more  the  gentle 
touch  of  your  hand  upon  my  head,  the  thrill 
of  your  fingers  among  my  hair  as  you  soothed 
and  comforted  me.  Then  gradually  the 
tears  ceased  and  my  voice  was  given  back  to 
me,  and  we  spake  one  to  the  other  as  only 
lovers  can  speak.  Nay !  Euphrosyne,  I 
shall  not  set  down  all  our  speech  here.  Into 
those  four  wonderful  hours  no  eyes  shall 
dare  pry;  no  ears  shall  dare  listen  save  His 
who,  touching  our  hearts  with  His  compas- 
sionate finger,  attuned  them  to  His  own 
rare  music.  We  found  love  beautiful,  you 
and  I,  wholly  beautiful,  and  we  were  sat- 
isfied. 

At  first  we  were  singularly  grave,  and  held 
deliberate  conference  regarding  our  future; 
then  dismissed  it,  as  we  thought,  finally. 
Love  was  setting  her  crown  upon  our  brow, 
you  said,  and  she  would  justify  herself  at  the 
last,  being  greater  than  all   things  else.     I 


^tfmihmi5oor'  47 

suggested  immediate  marriage,  proposing  to 
take  you  away  to  the  warmer  South,  where,  I 
professed  to  you,  health  and  strength  might 
be  regained. 

"  Oh,  so  my  new  doctor  would  begin  by 
deceiving  me,  would  he  ?  the  foolish,  loving 
man !"  you  said,  taking  my  face  in  both  your 
beautiful  hands  and  kissing  my  brow.  "  And 
why  marry,  my  ever  beloved?  Will  the 
love  between  thee  and  me  increase  in  holi- 
ness and  beauty  by  marriage  ?  Well,  then, 
let  us  marry  !  If  not,  let  us  stay  as  now  we 
are,  betrothed  in  soul,  until  the  end;  leaving 
the  rest  with  God,  in  whose  hands  we  are  and 
by  whose  grace  we  love." 

So  the  matter  was  dismissed.  Meanwhile, 
there  was  the  sea,  the  sunshine,  the  rocks, 
and  our  love.  The  black  cloud  might  or 
might  not  be  already  forming  somewhere 
beyond  our  horizon,  but  why  create  a  cloud 
for  ourselves?  It  must  come  some  day, and 
we  would  be  all  the  readier  to  enter  it  if  we 
refused  now  to  scan  the  distance  apprehen- 
sively. Look  at  the  sea  heaving  gently  out 
there,  gladsome,  shimmering,  musical:  our 
life  was  like  that,  you  said  ;  let  us  be  glad  in 


48  cBupi^rojstne  anD 

it  and  not  fear.  Besides,  there  could  be  no 
waste  in  love,  and  God  was  good. 

Later,  when  the  little  maid  had  brought  in 
the  tea,  how  joyous  and  delightfully  frivolous 
our  talk  grew !  I  could  even  tease  you  for 
that  you  had  called  me  "  beloved  "  first,  and 
had  kissed  me  first.  So  we  talked  and 
laughed,  and  your  laughter  was  as  the  laugh- 
ter of  the  great  forest-trees  when  the  sun 
warms  the  dew  at  their  roots.  It  was  the 
music  of  pure  joy  and  gladness.  Yea,  truly 
did  we  enter  into  each  other's  joy  on  that 
evening  of  our  betrothal,  and  our  own  joy 
was  fulfilled.  Then  I  remember,  as  we  sat 
by  the  window  afterwards,  saying  something, 
half  seriously,  about  the  brevity  of  our  ac- 
quaintance, throwing  some  allusive  doubt  on 
the  reality  of  our  knowledge  of  each  other. 

"  Nay,"  you  answered,  with  a  gathering 
solemnity  in  your  voice,  as  though  I  had  hurt 
you.  "  Nay,  do  not  speak  so.  Are  years 
of  mere  acquaintance  necessary  to  enable 
us  to  gain  an  intimacy  of  understanding?  Is 
it  not  at  least  possible  that  souls  may  be 
meant  for  each  other  though  born  far  apart? 
And  if  chance  and  time  bring  such  souls 


together,  may  there  not  be  a  certain  inward 
and  instant  recognition,  however  dim,  of 
their  spiritual  kinship  ?  It  is  an  old  belief, 
and  I  do  not  profess  to  understand  it,  but  I 
am  not  so  much  of  a  modern  as  not  to 
believe  that  it  is  surely  possible.  They  may 
never  marry — may  even  marry  otherwise ; 
but  across  the  gulf  that  an  evil  fate  has 
stretched,  that  recognition  may  flash  and  life 
be  ever  afterwards  more  sacred  because  of 
that  instant's  illumination.  At  least  I  can- 
not do  aught  but  believe  it  now." 

Then  you  quoted  the  following  lines  of 
Rossetti's.  Ah !  if  only  I  could  put  the 
light  of  your  eyes  into  them,  how  many 
lovers  would  read  them  to  each  other ! 

'^  Even  so  J  when  first  I  saw  you^  seemed  it,  love. 
That  among  souls  allied  to  mine  was  yet. 

One  nearer  kindred  than  life  hinted  of. 

O  born  with  me  somewhere  that  men  forget. 
And  though  in  years  of  sight  and  sound  unmet. 

Known  for  my  souVs  birth-partner  well  enough  I  ^^ 

I  made  you  go  over  them  again  and  again 
for  the  sheer  pleasure  I  had  in  listening  to 
your  voice.    Then  you  got  down  the  volume 


50  (Eupl^ro^vne 

from  a  set  of  high  shelves  by  the  window 
and  read' many  of  those  intimate  sonnets  of 
"The  House  of  Life"  —  some  of  them 
almost  too  intimate  and  precious  to  be  read 
and  criticised  by  the  vulgar  crowd ;  but  read 
there,  and  interpreted  by  our  immediate  ex- 
periences, how  convincing  and  satisfying  they 
were! 

So  the  evening  drew  its  sable  curtains  about 
us,  as  we  talked,  and  read,  and  laughed,  till 
the  moment  of  separation  came.  For  a  few 
precious  moments  we  spake  once  more  of 
the  first  things,  things  of  the  heart,  eternally 
memorable:  such  things  as  all  true  lovers, 
and  alas,  some  false  ones,  speak  to  each  other 
whenever  the  earth  lies  in  sympathetic  still- 
ness and  the  place  to  whisper  "Good  night" 
has  been  reached.  Then  you  sent  me  away 
—  night's  brood  of  stars  watching  us  as  we 
kissed  by  the  unshuttered  window. 

This  was  but  our  second  meeting,  yet 
love  had  cast  her  spell  over  us,  and  for 
better  or  worse,  for  richer  or  poorer,  in  sick- 
ness or  in  health,  we  had  entered  into  her 
kingdom  together;  there  to  abide  till  death 
and  afterwards. 


Love's 
Dishonouring 


tnpli^to^i^m 


53 


Love's 
Dishonouring 


"^Four 


r  seemed  to  me 
that  night  as  I 
walked  slowly 
back  to  the 
hotel  that  I  had 
crossed  more  in- 
visible boun- 
daries than  ever 
the  curious 
Walden  philos- 
opher's imagination  had  pictured  for  him. 
Truly,  my  feet  were  at  last  in  the  daisied 
valley  of  love,  I  thought,  and  in  a  little  while 
the  great  white  hills  would  flash  their  glory 
before  my  eyes — hills  up  whose  fragrant  sides 
you  and  I  would  climb  together,  greeting 
with  sweet  amazement  the  unimagined  beau- 
ties of  our  new  kingdom.      Yet  four  brief 


54  €upI^rojS^ne  and 

days  had  scarcely  come  and  gone  before  I 
knew  that  I  had  dishonoured  love  in  some 
shameless  and  wanton  way. 

There  must  be  the  beginnings  of  vision 
in  us  if  we  are  to  see  the  least  things  in  the 
kingdom  of  love,  you  told  me  one  day. 
But  I  had  never  seen  love  before,  never  felt 
her  presence,  nor  understood  her  subtle  min- 
istries, and  that  night  her  revelation  dazzled 
me,  blinded  me,  filled  me  with  an  ecstasy 
that  was  three  parts  pain ;  and  it  unfitted  me 
for  the  sudden  parting  which  faced  me  in 
the  morning.  Do  you  remember,  Euphros- 
yne,  how  you  told  me  when  I  came  back 
to  you,  ashamed  and  sad,  that  no  man  was 
capable  of  pure  felicity;  and  that  the  gray 
mist  of  melancholy  and  doubt,  which  was 
only  finally  dispelled  when  once  more  I 
looked  upon  you,  was  cast  over  me  by  a 
gracious  Hand  to  hold  me  to  the  earth? 
It  was  so  like  you  to  say  that!  Yet  this 
chapter  must  tell  how  little  I  deserved  to 
look  upon  the  shining  face  of  love,  and  how 
her  forgiveness  renews  the  spirit  of  man. 

My  sleep  was  filled  with  wondrous  visions 


of  fair  faces  and  shining  eyes  that  suddenly 
flashed  out  of  the  thick  darkness  upon  me, 
and  as  suddenly  vanished:  an  endless  pro- 
cession of  dissolving  views,  vague  and  imma- 
terial. Face  after  face  came  and  went;  at  last 
one  stayed.  It  was  still  and  white,  with  closed 
eyes  and  sad,  compressed  lips;  and  somehow 
I  knew  that  all  the  others  I  had  seen  were 
now  as  nothing  to  me  beside  that  dead,  inex- 
pressive face  that  stared  so  terribly  behind  the 
closed  eyelids.  I  must  have  been  half-awake, 
for  I  knew  where  I  was,  and  lay  fascinated  by 
the  awful  immobility  of  that  white  mask  which 
gleamed  in  the  dark.  I  became  conscious 
of  a  passionate  yearning  to  create  life  and 
motion.  If  only  those  eyes  would  open  and 
those  lips  lose  their  painful  rigidity,  I  be- 
lieved that  I  would  fully  awake,  and  that  the 
cold  paralysis  which  was  creeping  slowly  over 
my  limbs  and  heart  would  pass  away.  Then 
I  grew  aware  of  an  almost  imperceptible  move- 
ment; the  lips  trembled,  the  eyes  opened 
slowly,  and  then  the  face  sprang  into  ex- 
quisite life,  and  one  word  filled  the  room 
with  a  sound  as  of  low,  sweet  music.  The 
face  was   yours,  and  the  word  was  yours, 


56  Cupl^rojs^ne  and 

and  both  faded  softly  away,  and  I  dropped 
into  a  profound  dreamless  sleep. 

When  I  came  down  to  breakfast  the  next 
morning  with  that  wonderful  vision  still  fresh 
in  my  heart,  I  found  a  telegram,  which  felt 
like  a  piece  of  ice  in  my  fingers  when  I  had 
read  it.  I  was  needed  in  the  city  immedi- 
ately, to  be  present  at  a  delicate  operation 
which  would  take  place  early  the  next  day. 
It  meant  being  away  for  two  whole  days  and 
parts  of  two  more.  Four  days  absent  from 
you,  and  yesterday  only  a  few  hours  away! 
I  would  not  go  —  I  could  not  go  —  they 
must  get  some  one  to  take  my  place  at  the 
hospital.  I  had  not  yet  learned,  what  after- 
wards you  taught  me,  that  the  beauty  and 
strength  of  love  lay  in  her  exactions  and 
not  in  her  consolations.  I  even  fell  so  far 
as  to  write  a  reply  saying  that  I  could  not 
leave.  I  thrust  it  into  my  pocket,  and  sat 
down  to  my  breakfast  with  a  cool  self- 
satisfaction  that  humbles  me  still  in  the 
memory  of  it.  Half  an  hour  afterwards  I  left 
the  hotel,  with  the  intention  of  sending  the 
telegram  myself.  But  turning  unconsciously 
towards  the  white  gate,  which  stood  in  the 


opposite  direction,  I  was  already  within  sight 
of  your  cottage  before  I  became  aware  of  the 
way  I  had  taken.  Well!  I  would  go  on; 
it  could  be  sent  afterwards. 

It  is  strange  to  me  to-day  to  remember 
that  when  I  saw  you  that  early  morning 
standing  among  your  currant-bushes,  with 
the  glory  of  the  sun  falling  on  your  uncovered 
head,  I  felt  no  thrill  of  shame  for  what  I  intend- 
ed to  do.  Surely,  my  momentary  degradation 
could  not  have  been  more  complete!  I  had 
fallen,  as  I  was  to  fall  again,  because  I  under- 
stood not  love  nor  her  ways. 

"  You  are  abroad  early,"  I  cried,  over  the 
white  gate. 

I  can  still  see  the  quick  uplift  of  your  fair 
head,  and  the  radiance  of  the  smile  that  cut 
me  like  a  lancet.  You  had  to  be  about 
the  things  of  your  Father  early,  you  said, 
for  evil  was  never  far  from  God's  choicest 
fruits. 

Ah!  was  not  evil  close  to  me  at  that 
moment?  And  I  —  I  was  no  choice  fruit 
of  God. 

"I  have  to  go,"  I  began;  then  stammered 
confusedly.     "  I  mean    .    .    .    this  came  to 


58  (Eup]^roj8tne  anu 

me  a  little  while  ago."  And  I  handed  you 
the  telegram. 

Your  face  paled  slightly  as  you  read  it; 
then  you  looked  up  at  me  with  that  ever  brave 
smile.  But  before  you  could  speak  —  "  I  — 
I — can  get  a  substitute,"  I  said,  and  knew 
immediately  the  full  meanness  of  my  words. 

"Oh,  my  beloved!"  you  cried,  with  an 
inexpressible  dismay  in  your  voice  which 
haunted  me  for  many  an  hour. 

You  led  me  into  the  cottage  as  though 
I  were  a  little  child,  and  there  I  told  you 
of  the  temptation  that  had  gripped  me  so 
sorely.  You  would  not  believe  that  I  had 
really  intended  staying  behind.  Such  love  as 
ours  could  not  so  shame  our  souls,  you  said. 
It  was  only  passion  that  was  selfish.  Love 
transfigured  the  human  soul,  making  it  aware 
of  its  highest  function  —  to  serve.  It  could 
not  be  from  God  if  it  caused  us  to  forget 
the  rest  of  the  Father's  children  in  the  love 
of  one.  That  might  be  love  as  man  fashioned 
it;  but  it  was  not  the  love  that  was  ours  yester- 
day, that  was  ours  still.  There  was  a  great 
sentence  in  "  Marius,"  which  was  a  sort 
of  watchword  to  you,  and  had  proved  highly 


effective  in  the  direction  of  unselfishness. 
Did  I  not  remember  it?  I  ought  to  bind  it 
to  my  heart.  "He  must  satisfy  with  a  kind 
of  sacred  equity,  he  must  be  very  cautious 
not  to  be  wanting  to  the  claims  of  others 
in  their  joys  and  calamities."  And  no  great 
love  had  come  to  Marius  when  he  said  that. 
Ought  not  we  to  be  as  far  above  him  in  our 
conceptions  of  duty  as  he  was  above  the 
common  crowd?  To  love  one  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  it  overflowed  in  spontaneous  ser- 
vice to  all  who  needed  it  most  —  that,  you 
thought,  was  to  show  one's  self  a  true  lover. 
So  you  talked  that  morning,  tenderly,  ca- 
ressingly; and  I  was  cleansed  through  your 
word.  Then  you  kissed  me  on  my  lips  and 
on  my  eyes  and  bade  me  go.  You  would 
count  the  hours  and  then  the  minutes  till 
you  saw  me  again. 

The  operation  was  a  brilliant  success,  but 
in  fear  of  some  unknown  complication  it  was 
considered  necessary  that  I  should  remain 
another  day  in  the  city,  and  during  that 
time  my  soul  sank  into  the  Hades  of  shame 
and   contempt.      My    brain    had   been  too 


6o  (Eupl^rojs^ne  ant) 

actively  employed  on  the  morning  of  the 
operation  to  leave  any  chance  opening  for 
the  entrance  of  morbid  thoughts ;  but  when 
the  strain  relaxed,  and  I  took  a  stroll  into 
the  streets  late  in  the  evening,  an  indefinable 
sense  of  forsakenness  took  possession  of  me, 
body  and  soul.  The  city  had  lost  all  its 
former  attraction  for  me ;  I  longed  only  for 
the  sea.  But  the  horror  of  it  was  that  I 
could  not  bring  before  my  mind  any  clear 
picture  of  the  sea.  My  experiences  of  the 
last  few  days  fell  into  a  blurred,  ineffectual 
mass  of  unrelated  things,  out  of  which  no 
single  thing  stood  defined.  I  lost  your  face 
absolutely  among  the  jostling,  eager,  un- 
spiritual  men  and  women  who  crowded  the 
pavement.  Try  as  I  would,  your  shining 
eyes  and  wonderful  hair  eluded  me,  and  with 
the  fading  of  vision  came  an  inquietude  and 
doubt,  vague  and  uncertain  at  first,  but  gath- 
ering volume  and  poignancy  as  the  shadows 
of  night  fell  around  me.  A  pillar  of  cloud 
stood  between  me  and  the  past,  into  which  I 
longed  so  piteously  to  return ;  and  that  face 
in  the  past  for  which  I  yearned  most  was 
wholly  hidden  from  me. 


feV(0olDen  13006"  6i 

The  coward  that  seems  always  to  be  lurk- 
ing somewhere  within  me  conquered  the 
man,  and  the  awful  thought  grew  upon  me 
that  you  were  unreal,  a  mere  creature  of  my 
imagination.  I  had  never  been  away  from 
this  pitiless  city,  and  the  things  that  had 
seemed  so  true  were  but  the  tedious  vagaries 
of  a  tired  brain.  I  had  loved  something  that 
was  nothing — a  strange,  white  shadow,  a  pro- 
jection of  subconsciousness.  Some  gleam- 
ing angel  had  touched  me  with  her  wings  in 
my  dreams,  but  had  left  no  witnessing 
feather  behind  her.  I  held  nothing  that 
would  materialize,  and  the  sense  of  unreality 
was  more  appallingly  real  than  the  actual 
men  and  women  who  rushed  eagerly  past 
me  in  the  dark.  How  could  such  wonder- 
ful things  as  I  had  fancied  be  true?  How 
could  such  a  face  as  I  had  seen  in  my  dreams 
shine  out  from  among  those  hard  and  unlit 
countenances  I  now  saw  ?  Oh,  my  Euphros- 
yne,  truly  I  had  lost  you,  and  in  your  place 
were  those  haggard  men  and  women,  worn 
and  soiled  with  the  evil  of  the  world. 

If  one  had  asked  of  me  two  days  before, 
if  a  man  could  look  upon  your  face,  then  go 


62  Cupi^rojs^ne  and 

away  and  so  soon  forget  what  manner  of 
face  he  had  looked  upon,  I  would  have 
thought  that  questioner  insane.  But  there 
was  I,  who  had  not  only  seen,  but  who  had 
held  your  dear  face  in  my  hands,  walking 
those  streets  a  prey  for  every  evil  spirit 
abroad,  and  utterly  unable  to  vision  for  my- 
self the  best  beloved  among  the  daughters 
of  God.  And  all  the  while  you  were  in 
your  cottage  counting  the  hours  till  I  re- 
turned. 

The  next  day,  all  that  turbulent  gloom 
passed  into  another,  and  to  me  a  more  delir- 
ious, phase.  Perhaps  I  was  not  wholly  re- 
sponsible for  my  inability  to  see  you  amid 
surroundings  that  appeared  so  alien,  but 
what  shall  I  say  of  the  doubt  and  terror  that 
now  possessed  me?  There  is  no  plea,  there 
are  no  words,  that  I  might  urge  in  my  favour. 
I  ought  to  have  known  you,  and  it  is  my 
lasting  shame  that  I  did  not.  Ah !  dear 
Lady  of  Joy,  forgive  me  again,  as  you  once 
forgave.  Your  face  now  shone  before  me  in 
the  city  streets,  making  even  the  cruel  faces 
I  encountered  seem  less  repulsive.  And 
thus  gazing  upon  you  I  doubted  you !     Oh, 


that  withering  doubt,  that  most  evil  of  all 
evil  things ;  and  that  shining  face  to  which  I 
could  not  attain !  Yea,  it  seemed  more  aloof 
from  me  now  than  yesterday,  when  I  could 
not  see  it — because  I  doubted,  and  there  is 
no  beatific  communion  for  the  doubter.  My 
own  love  was  still  passionate  and  simple — 
that  I  knew;  but  you,  I  thought,  you  must 
have  found  out  the  mistake  of  it  all  by  this 
time.  I  had  pressed  my  love,  nay,  imposed 
it  on  you,  so  eager  and  tempestuous  it  had 
proved;  and  the  wind,  the  sea,  the  whole 
circumstances  of  our  meeting,  had  conspired 
together  to  make  you  dream  of  love.  But 
now  I  was  here  in  the  dreary  city,  no  longer 
sitting  by  the  great  chair  of  love,  and  it  must 
needs  he  that  now  you  regretted  the  won- 
derful things  you  had  said  to  me.  I  could 
see  the  compassionate  self-reproach  in  your 
beautiful  eyes ;  and  the  brooding  horror  of 
the  desolateness  of  a  long  future  robbed  of 
the  love  which  I  had  rashly  claimed  as  mine 
filled  my  very  being  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
else.  God  knows  that  I  would  have  faced 
cheerfully,  at  any  moment  of  that  day,  the 
direst  calamity  that  could  have  wrecked  my 


64  €\xp\)vo^vvit  anti 

life,  if  only  I  could  have  regained  my  belief 
in  your  love  for  me.  But  as  I  had  lost  you 
yesterday,  now  I  had  lost  the  very  conscious- 
ness that  you  loved  me,  and  the  burden 
seemed  to  grow  greater  than  I  could  bear. 
But  oh,  the  shame  of  it  all  was  so  much 
greater,  only  it  did  not  descend  upon  me  till 
the  burden  lifted:  so  manifold  are  the  mer- 
cies of  God. 

Some  time  later  in  the  day  I  wandered  into 
the  poor  parts  of  the  city,  and  entered  the 
cathedral,  which  seemed  to  flaunt  its  grandeur 
as  a  perpetual  challenge  to  the  squalor  and 
poverty  and  vice  clustering  around  it,  even 
to  the  very  doors.  I  sat  down,  weary  and 
dejected,  listening  with  only  half  my  mind  at 
first  to  the  music  of  the  organ.'  Gradually 
it  seemed  to  draw  nearer  to  me,  encompassing 
me  and  soothing  my  troubled  spirit.  Just  a 
faint  sound  as  of  the  melody  of  breaking  sea- 
waves  floated  down  the  long  dim  aisles.  Was 
it  an  indicant  of  the  richer,  fuller  melody  of 
days  yet  to  dawn?  I  could  not  tell,  and 
scarcely  knew  what  I  desired ;  but  I  left  the 
cathedral,  if  not  at  rest,  at  least  no  longer 
actively  doubting.     It  was  not  that   I   had 


regained  any  saner  or  nobler  thoughts,  for 
I  still  believed  that  some  unique  sorrow 
awaited  me  on  the  morrow,  but  I  had  ceased 
to  argue  with  myself. 

When  the  morrow  did  coma,  it  found  me 
more  restless  and  troubled  than  ever.  The 
despondency  and  unbelief  gained  rapidly  on 
me  as  the  train  drew  near  its  destination.  I 
seemed  travelling  to  my  doom,  yet  none  the 
less  longed  feverishly  for  the  journey's  end. 
And  when  at  last  I  stepped  out  upon  the 
platform,  and  saw  you  standing  there  with 
welcoming  eyes,  and  eager  hands  stretched 
out  in  greeting,  I  scarce  could  look  upon  you 
for  shamefacedness.  I  had  doubted  love,  wan- 
tonly thought  all  ill  of  her,  and  she  herself 
stood  there  the  first  to  greet  me  ! 

"  The  time  has  been  long,"  you  said. 

**  Aye,  my  love,  very  long,"  I  answered. 

An  hour  afterwards  we  were  once  more 
together  on  the  rocks  watching  the  sea,  and 
as  we  watched  I  told  you,  little  by  little,  with 
many  bitter  pauses,  the  story  of  my  shame — 
how  I  had  first  lost  you,  then,  having  found 
you  again,  distrusted  you ;  how  all  love  seemed 


66  €upl^ro0^ne  anD 

dishonoured  in  my  doubt.  But  you  would  not 
let  me  call  it  distrust,  so  full  of  gracious  love 
and  queenly  truth  were  you.  It  was  the  direct 
outcome  of  the  mental  strain  I  had  been 
under,  you  said,  and  the  sudden  contrast 
between  the  free,  open  life  by  the  sea  and 
that  suffocating  city.  I  would  in  time  have 
stood  clear  of  the  cloud,  you  thought,  with- 
out any  aid  of  sight.  Love  was  some- 
thing so  unfathomable  that  no  man  knew  the 
secret  of  her  ways,  but  she  would  surely  have 
found  a  channel  for  expression,  some  mode 
of  manifesting  herself  which  would  have 
scattered  forever  all  my  untrue  thoughts  of 
her. 

Only  once  that  afternoon  did  you  let  me 
feel  any  sense  of  the  pain  throbbing  behind 
your  words.  It  was  when  you  asked  me  how 
I  could  have  thought  that  love  could  ever 
die.  It  was  the  involuntary  cry  of  a  gentle 
soul  under  peculiar  torture,  but  it  passed  as 
quickly  as  it  had  come.  Love  must  be  im- 
mortal, you  said,  or  how  could  it  ever  have 
been  one  of  the  grand  names  of  God.  Be- 
sides, was  it  not  eternally  unsatisfied,  ever 
yearning  and  striving  for  greater  perfection 


i^tv''mmni5oor'  67 

and  closer  completeness  in  the  soul  upon 
which  it  alighted?  No  mere  mortal  thing 
knew  such  pain  of  aspiration  as  love  knew. 
So  many  writers  spoke  of  love  as  if  it  could 
have  fixed  boundaries  in  time  and  unsettled 
resting-places.  They  made  their  men  and 
women  join  hands  and  lives  with  the  ex- 
pressed agreement  that  when  love  should  die 
or  change  in  either,  then  they  would  go  their 
separate  ways.  That  was  to  place  an  infinite 
name  upon  a  finite  passion.  Love  manifest- 
ing itself  under  human  conditions  must  still 
be  divine,  and  after  the  power  of  an  indisso- 
luble life.  Much  of  the  misery  of  mankind, 
you  thought,  arose  from  the  making  of  a 
distinction,  where  no  distinction  was,  between 
human  and  divine  love. 

As  I  listened  to  you  that  afternoon,  though 
almost  every  word  you  spoke  scorched  me, 
even  when  it  healed  me,  I  had  gladness  in 
my  doubts,  because  they  drew  out  from  you 
the  deepest  and  purest  thoughts  of  your 
soul.  There  was  an  unconscious  change 
of  the  pronoun  in  some  later  expressions 
of  yours  which  seemed  to  me  to  give  an 
added  significance  to  all  your  thought.     I 


68  Cupi^rojsttte  and 

had  wondered  at  your  knowledge  of  the 
ways  of  love,  and  you  said  it  was  not  know- 
ledge, but  a  dim  groping  after  it.  No  one 
could  really  know  what  the  inmost  soul  of 
love  was,  for  then  God  would  stand  fully 
disclosed.  We  could  only  catch  glimpses  of 
her  here  and  there,  swift  manifestations  of  her 
presence,  but  what  she  was  in  herself  was  hid- 
den in  the  very  being  of  God.  Even  the 
finest  poetry  only  dimly  apprehended  her 
surpassing  glory.  Love  the  Father  had 
kept  in  His  own  hands,  and  her  complete 
revelation  was  reserved  for  the  future.  I 
remember  saying,  with  some  shallow  petu- 
lance, that  preachers  were  always  bidding  us 
wait  for  the  thing  we  desired  most  until  we 
stood  at  last  in  the  presence  of  God,  and 
now  you  were  taking  your  place  beside  them. 
Not  quite  beside  them,  you  thought,  for  you 
drew  no  fatal  line  between  life  and  death. 
You  were  as  much  in  the  presence  of  God 
at  that  moment  by  the  sea  as  you  ever  ex- 
pected to  be  at  any  other  time.  You  hoped 
to  know  more  of  God,  as  you  hoped  to  know 
more  of  love,  but  both  were  around  you, 
ever  present  with  you.     The  future  would 


only  make  a  difference  in  human  comprehen- 
sion or  insight,  not  in  fact. 

How  strange  and  aloof  seemed  much  of 
your  talk  to  me  then!  How  little  I  entered 
into  the  deeper  meaning  of  it  all,  or  appre- 
hended the  true  beautiful  soul  of  you ! 
Many  years  were  to  pass  away  before  I  saw 
what  you  always  saw,  that  love  and  God, 
life  and  death,  were  only  different  manifes- 
tations of  the  same  spirit. 

As  we  walked  homeward  along  the  cliffs,  the 
sun  gently  sank  behind  the  far  marge  of  the 
sea.  Men  spoke  of  the  sun  as  dying,  you  said, 
when  it  had  only  passed  beyond  our  present 
vision.  All  death,  so  terrible  to  the  thought 
of  most  men,  was  only  like  that.  You  were 
glad  to  be  alive  upon  the  earth,  glad  to  walk 
there  with  me  by  the  shore,  to  listen  to  the 
waves,  and  to  gather  fresh  flowers,  to  answer 
love  with  more  love;  but  death  also  was  a 
beautiful  thing,  for  it  was  one  of  the  ways 
the  Father  had  chosen  by  which  His  chil- 
dren should  find  an  entrance  into  a  fuller 
life  of  knowledge  and  sweet  service. 

I  could  not  answer  those  thoughts  of 
yours,  for  my  soul  was  too  sorrowful,  and  the 


70  dnpl^vo^^nt 

dishonour  of  my  doubt  lay  still  too  heavily 
upon  me.  And  as  I  looked  into  your  face, 
the  last  rays  of  the  sun  falling  fitfully  upon 
it,  a  great  awe  and  wonder  stilled  the  beat- 
ing of  my  heart,  for  it  seemed  to  me  that 
already  the  mortal  had  begun  to  put  on  im- 
mortality. 


The  '•'■  Golden 
Book'' 


(Eupljrojstnc 


73 


The  '-''Golden 
BooF 


HE  next  few 
weeks,  until  the 
seventh  day  of 
September,  were 
weeks  of  pure 
felicity,  wherein 
our  dual  life 
reached  its 
height.  The 
bright,  warm 
days  saw  us  at  our  favourite  rocks,  or  on  the 
sea,  or  in  the  little  garden,  or  driving  into  the 
country,  so  healthily  fragrant  just  at  that  time 
with  all  ripening  things.  But  at  any  hint  of 
nature  turning  cold  you  would  stay  within  the 
cottage,  and  I  would  come  to  you.  Thus  the 
wonderful  days  went  by,  each  adding  its  own 
offering  to  the  general  sum  of  joy.     In  our 


n^ 

^^^3 

m 

w%^  i^^^'^^TT^^^^I  ]  3!^ 

74  €up]^roi8^ne  ann 

own  manner  we  imitated  Marius  in  our  en- 
deavour "to  be  perfect  with  regard  to  what 
was  here  and  now,"  doing  no  disservice  to 
our  sweet  communion  by  permitting  foolish 
thoughts  of  future  trouble  to  tarry  long  with 
us.  How  pure  and  strong  was  your  love, 
Euphrosyne !  How  abounding  in  tender  con- 
solations and  unexpected  felicities ! 

Out  of  all  those  beautiful  days,  one  here 
and  one  there  holds  for  me  a  beauty  or  a 
memory  clinging  to  itself  alone.  It  was  the 
day  after  my  return  from  the  city  that  we 
commenced  to  read  together  "  Marius  the 
Epicurean."  Much  rain  had  fallen  during 
the  night,  and  as  we  strolled  along  the  shore 
to  our  sheltered  place  among  the  rocks,  the 
moorland  steamed  beneath  the  hot  sun ;  and 
that  singular  smell  of  sea-air  and  dr^'ing 
earth  associates  itself  still  with  the  reading 
of  that  day. 

We  read  slowly,  with  much  lingering  to 
seize  the  beauty  of  expression,  much  digging 
into  the  roots  of  words  to  get  the  full  force 
of  them  as  they  were  before  modern  usage 
had  robbed  them  of  their  meanings,  so  that 
they  might  become  to  us  what  they  were  to 


the  mind  of  Walter  Pater  when  he  chose 
them.  And  we  read  with  very  little  of  a 
pause  till  far  into  the  glorious  afternoon. 

I  remember  that  the  delicate,  reticent 
chapters  concerning  Flavian  started  you  on 
a  monologue  about  the  much  abused  style. 
You  had  great  delight  in  reading  it  for  the 
sake  of  the  beautiful  prose,  apart  altogether 
from  its  teaching.  Even  the  involved  sen- 
tences, with  their  too  frequent  parenthetical 
clauses  had  for  you  a  certain  fitness  and  pre- 
ciousness  of  their  own.  They  wrought  in 
you  an  exquisite  sense  of  leisure,  of  ample 
time,  amid  a  bustling,  hurrying  world,  you 
said.  The  aesthetic  qualities  on  this  page 
and  on  that — indicating,  among  others,  as 
passages  most  recently  read,  the  description 
of  White  Nights,  the  temple  among  the  hills 
of  Etruria,  the  story  of  Cupid  and  Psyche, 
and  the  "  sacred  day"  of  I  sis — had  a  charm 
and  fragrance  not  to  be  found  in  any  other 
writing  known  to  you.  Was  not  Mr.  Pater  like 
Flavian  in  this  respect,  that  he  too  was  "  an 
ardent,  indefatigable  student  of  words,  of  the 
means  or  instrument  of  the  literary  art"  ? 
Every  true  and  beautiful  word  seemed  to  you 


76  €np))vo^i^m  and 

an  intellectual  enrichment,  opening  windows 
that  looked  out  across  wide  stretches  of  liter- 
ary landscape  and  seascape — would  I  allow 
the  latter  expression,  seeing  there  was  so 
much  of  it  before  us? — delighting  the  mind 
with  hitherto  unexpected  lovelinesses.  How 
Mr.  Pater  gave  the  precise — sometimes,  also, 
it  proved  a  restored — significance  to  each 
word;  taking  his  art  with  a  deep  seriousness 
that  was  mentally  bracing  !  Yes  (this  in  an- 
swer to  a  provocative  question),  he  might  be 
called  a  Euphuist,  but  he  was  not  to  be 
classed  with  the  Elizabethans,  who  gloried  in 
the  name.  There  was  no  arbitrary  forcing  of 
words  merely  made  exigent  by  rhyme  and 
metre  in  poetry,  or  by  rhythm  in  prose,  as 
might  be  seen  in  the  older  work,  and  in  that 
of  some  moderns  who  imagined  they  were 
imitating  the  prose  of  "  Marius."  Such 
a  use — or  should  it  be  abuse  ? — of  words, 
when  not  in  harmony  with  at  least  the  abid- 
ing spirit  of  our  language,  was  pedantry  or 
affectation,  and  no  enrichment,  but  rather  a 
despoliation  which  every  true  lover  of  letters 
would  strive  scrupulously  to  avoid.  There 
was  a  conspicuous  literary  sincerity  through- 


out  "  Marius,"  which,  except  at  rare  inter- 
vals, kept  Mr.  Pater  true  to  whatever  matter 
he  had  in  hand.  The  whole  chapter  on 
"  Euphuism"  you  considered  to  be  a  con- 
fession of  his  own  most  exalted  convictions 
on  the  art  of  literature.  And  a  conscientious 
study  of  it  would  reveal  his  attitude  toward 
life  and  letters. 

Later  in  the  evening  I  said  something 
about  the  apparent  futility  of  such  a  life  as 
Marius  had  conceived  for  himself;  that,  for 
all  his  beautiful  ideas  and  sensations,  he  had 
accomplished  very  little,  if  anything,  with  his 
life.  But  you  said  that  the  simple  presence 
of  so  gentle  and  speculative  a  soul  must  have 
been  a  powerful,  even  if  a  silent,  inspiration 
to  those  with  whom  he  companied,  and  also 
to  many  who  only  chanced  to  look  upon 
him  as  he  passed  them  on  his  way.  A  man 
might  live,  and  live  a  fairly  useful  life,  as 
the  world  weighed  usefulness,  without  much 
thought,  but  it  was  impossible  that  a  man 
should  think  as  Marius  thought  without 
living  to  some  purpose.  It  was  not  the 
actual  things  done  or  said  in  a  lifetime  that 
seemed  to  you  the  most  valuable,  but  the 


78  Cupi^rojs^ne  anD 

whole  being,  the  invisible,  unfathomable 
heart  of  the  man,  which  was  often  much  more 
beautiful  and  godlike  than  any  particular 
speech  or  deed.  The  soul  appeared  as  created 
anew  within  the  man  who  habitually  cherished 
beautiful  and  noble  thoughts,  and  a  superior 
soul  must,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  in- 
fluence beneficently  the  world  in  which  it 
shone. 

I  do  not  now  remember  in  what  manner 
I  drew  you  into  sweet  speech  concerning 
yourself,  but  you  told  me  that  you  had  tried 
to  live  strenuously,  because  some  one  had 
long  ago  taunted  you  with  being  a  dreamer 
of  beautiful  dreams  that  never  actualized; 
but  your  attempts  had  come  to  as  little  as 
your  dreams.  You  had  never  done  anything 
with  your  life.  (Oh,  my  Euphrosyne  !)  As 
far  back  as  you  could  see  you  had  always 
been  what  now  you  were  —  a  woman  from 
whom  the  active  side  of  life  had  been  com- 
pletely cut  off.  Once  you  had  even  enter- 
tained a  passionate  hope  of  being  able  to 
put  on  record  the  lovely  thoughts  that  had 
come  to  you  unsought,  but  the  art  of  words 
was  not  yours.     The  moment  you  tried  to 


l$tt''mihml5ooW'  79 

fix  it,  to  give  it  a  body,  the  thought,  which 
had  been  so  much  to  you  the  moment  be- 
fore, became  an  airy  nothing  for  which  there 
were  no  words.  Oh,  yes;  you  could  share 
your  deepest  thoughts  with  me,  but  that  was  be- 
cause love  vaulted  the  unseen  but  real  barriers 
that  kept  human  souls  apart,  and  we  loved. 

And  a  strange  thing  happened  here  which 
I  know  not  rightly  how  to  tell.  You  were 
sitting  at  my  feet  on  a  large,  soft  cushion  that 
we  had  brought  from  the  cottage,  and  I  on  a 
bowlder  which  formed  a  sort  of  footstool  for 
the  chair  of  love.  Upon  your  upturned 
face  rested  that  wonderful  light  which  always 
so  stilled  and  awed  me,  as  if  I  were  in  the 
presence  of  some  mysterious  intelligence  from 
another  world,  when  suddenly  as  I  gazed 
upon  you  I  saw  those  dear  shining  eyes  fill 
with  tears.  In  a  moment  I  was  down  on  the 
sand  by  your  side,  with  my  arms  about  you 
and  your  head  on  my  bosom.  I  think  the 
remembrance  of  the  past,  of  what  you  had 
yearned  to  do  with  your  life,  and  of  all  its 
apparent  failure,  had  brought  a  desolating' 
sense  of  how  soon  it  was  to  come  to  an  end 
here.     For  after  a  little  while  you  told  me 


8o  Ciipi^rojs^ne  anD 

that  the  love  that  had  come  so  unexpectedly 
into  your  life  had  filled  you  with  a  longing 
for  a  little  more  time  and  a  little  more 
strength  to  learn  its  great  meaning  and  to 
pay  its  demands. 

"  Oh,  but  I  would  live,  dear,"  you  said, 
looking  at  me  once  more,  "  for  now  you 
have  come,  .  .  .  and  ...  I  have  seen 
love  and  yet  must  die." 

It  was  the  only  time  in  those  wonderful 
weeks  that  regret  found  any  voice  in  you;  and 
now  after  all  these  years  the  pure  humanness 
of  it  is  to  me  a  most  precious  remembrance. 

And  when  afterwards,  as  I  shall  have  to 
tell,  my  own  turn  came  and  came  again — a 
passionate,  tempestuous  rebellion — you  were 
to  me  as  the  voice  of  God,  for  you  had 
fought  the  same  battle  and  had  won.  But 
you  could  never  have  been  so  patient,  so 
compassionately  tender,  so  full  of  dear  conso- 
lation and  grace,  if  you  had  not  known  for  that 
brief  moment  the  agony  of  incompleteness. 

There  Is  another  morning  and  evening 
that  gleam  out  of  the  past  upon  me  as  I  sit 
here  by  my  desk  writing  of  you  and  the 


"  Golden  Book."  One  morning,  about  a 
fortnight  after  we  began  the  reading  of 
"  Marius,"  we  had  driven  several  miles  along 
a  wide,  white  road  which  led  us  into  the 
heart  of  the  surrounding  country,  when  we 
came  suddenly  upon  a  forest  of  inconsider- 
able extent,  but  abounding  with  wild  flowers 
and  dark  ferns.  For  two  hours  we  wandered 
beneath  the  trees,  now  hand  in  hand,  now 
stopping  to  gather  ferns  and  flowers,  now 
resting  a  moment  on  the  dry  trunk  of  some 
long  since  uprooted  tree,  until  we  had  our 
fill  of  the  new  joy  which  the  morning  had 
brought  us.  There  had  been  no  mention  of 
books  all  that  time,  but  I  remember  it  was 
on  the  way  back  that  the  conversation  drifted 
to  "  Marius."  You  spoke  of  the  industrious 
care  with  which  Mr.  Pater  elaborated  his 
characters,  and  I  learned  how  deeply  you 
detested  merely  clever  writing — the  preten- 
tious essaying  of  those  who  would  pack  a 
character  into  an  epigram  and  think  they  had 
done  literature  a  service,  as  you  said.  How 
delicately  and  gradually  the  characters  in 
"  Marius"  evolved  themselves  !  It  was  only 
through  the  curious  combination  of  word  and 


82  (Eupi^rojS^ne  and 

deed  and  circumstance,  each  bringing  its 
distinct  and  individual  revelation,  that  at 
last  the  men  and  women — Marius,  Flavian, 
Cornelius,  Marcus  Aurelius,  Faustina,  Cece- 
lia—  stood  clearly  out  of  their  historic, 
shadowy  surroundings ;  but  once  they  did 
appear,  it  was  unmistakable,  unforgettable,  of 
what  sort  they  were.  Was  not  that  the  only 
genuine  method  of  portraiture  ?  It  was  the 
recognition,  so  you  thought,  on  the  part  of 
the  artist,  or,  if  I  liked,  the  historian,  that  the 
true  revelation  of  character  was  not  to  be 
found  in  one  act  or  peculiarity,  but  in  differ- 
ing acts  widely  apart,  and  in  the  contradictory 
circumstances  which  together  constituted  a 
life  of  any  moment.  How  gradually  the  rev- 
elation of  the  deeper  elements  in  the  char- 
acter of  Marcus  Aurelius  came — a  revelation 
causing  Marius  deliberately  to  reverse  his 
first  judgments !  Always  recognizing  the 
sentiment  surrounding  the  emperor  as  one 
of  mediocrity,  it  had  seemed  to  him,  during 
early  acquaintance,  to  be  a  "  mediocrity  for 
once  really  golden."  Then  little  by  little  a 
saying,  a  definite  act  or  an  indifferent  acqui- 
escence in  another's  act,  by  light  cast  swifdy 


I^er  ^^c^DlDen  i5oo6"  83 

now  upon  this,  now  upon  that  side  of  his 
character,  Marius  reached  his  final  judgment, 
that  although  it  was  still  a  mediocrity  it  was 
a  "mediocrity  no  longer  golden";  a  gray, 
stained,  ugly  mediocrity,  little  removed  from 
the  baser  sentiments  of  the  vulgar  populace 
who  accorded  him  his  tawdry  "  triumph." 
That  was  one  of  the  triumphs  of  the  "  Golden 
Book,"  you  thought. 

It  was  on  the  evening  of  the  same  day  that 
I  caught  other  and  more  precious  glimpses 
of  the  joyous  soul  that  had  linked  itself 
to  mine.  We  were  in  that  chaste,  fragrant 
room,  become  now  so  sacred  to  us  because 
of  our  first  kiss.  Inevitably  our  speech  had 
flown  back  to  the  hours  of  the  morning  and 
their  gift  of  gladness.  I  had  said  some  fool- 
ish thing  or  other  about  the  brevity  of  all 
joy ;  that  the  hours  were  gone  now,  being 
things  of  the  past,  never  to  return  again,  un- 
less, indeed,  as  a  kind  of  desolating  remem- 
brance. And  I  quoted  Tennyson's  echo  of 
Dante  and  Chaucer  as  a  buttress  for  my  per- 
verse mood  of  pessimism — 

*'  That  a  sorrow's  crown  of  sorrow  is  remember- 
ing happier  things." 


84  (^npljto^^m  anti 

"  Nay,  my  dear  love  !  "  you  cried,  as  you 
came  and  crouched  at  my  feet  on  the  rug, 
and  laid  your  hands  caressingly  on  mine. 
"  How  precisely  and  stupidly  wrong  such  a 
sentiment  is,  in  spite  of  the  trio  of  great 
poets  who  have  indorsed  it !  A  really  beau- 
tiful day  never  ends.  There  can  be  no  least 
taint  of  mortality  in  a  single  moment  that 
has  once  breathed  full  of  joy.  The  glory 
of  that  splendid  experience  will  live  on,  ful- 
filling its  own  peculiar  function,  and  through 
the  saddest  of  after  hours  saving  the  spirit 
from  final  despair.  It  shall  be  a  remem- 
brance of  hope,  not  of  desolation." 

You  were  gazing  straight  into  my  eyes, 
and  as  I  looked  down  upon  that  dear  face  I 
saw  a  wistful  sadness  steal  into  it,  the  tender 
lips  quiver  for  ever  so  brief  an  instant ;  and 
I  knew  your  thoughts  were  with  the  dead. 
By  and  by  you  spoke  again,  in  a  voice  so 
subdued  and  melodic  that  it  was  as  though 
it  came  across  the  sea. 

"I  remember  once,  it  is  years  ago  now, 
staying  with  my  father  in  a  little  town  in 
Wharfedale.  It  was  summer;  and  one 
night,  as  we  so  much  loved  to  do  —  for  my 


I^er  ^^d^olDen'Booft"  85 

mother  had  died  soon  after  my  birth,  and 
father  and  I  were  everything  to  each  other 
—  we  strolled  to  the  very  outskirts  of  the 
town.  We  soon  left  the  dusty  road  and 
clambered  over  some  low  wooden  railings 
into  an  old  plantation  which  led  us  to  the 
banks  of  the  lovely  river.  It  was  a  perfect 
night,  and  we  stood  watching  the  crystal  circle 
round  the  moon  grow  radiant  with  fantastic 
fires.  The  murmur  of  the  river  in  front  of 
us  and  the  slight  whispering  of  the  trees 
behind  us  had  a  steadying  effect  upon  our 
spirits  indescribable.  When  suddenly  it 
seemed  that  the  shivering  music  of  the  wood 
died  away,  and  the  very  river  lay  hushed 
and  listening;  then  out  of  the  great  stillness 
sprang  a  most  exquisite  song.  It  was  the 
first  and  only  time  I  ever  heard  a  nightin- 
gale. How  he  sang !  Hidden  quite  out  of 
sight,  be  poured  forth  a  flood  of  rich  melody 
to  his  distant  mate,  as  though  he  knew  full 
well  that  somewhere,  also  out  of  sight,  she 
could  hear  and  interpret  his  message.  It 
was  like  some  old-world  melody  that  would 
fain  call  the  wandering  spirit  home,  lest  it 
should  lose  the  mystic  meanings  informing 


86  €\xp\^to^^m  anD 

the  soul  of  common  things.  My  father  said, 
in  his  poetic  way,  that  it  was  the  unseen 
choirs  from  the  stars,  who  lived  their  spheral 
music  all  day  long,  that  had  dropped  at  last 
to  the  earth  and  now  sang  their  strange  star- 
songs  imprisoned  in  the  soul  of  that  one 
night-bird.  I  have  never  heard  anything  to 
be  compared  to  it  since;  but  that  night  I 
was  docile  and  receptive,  and  the  song  has 
stayed  with  me,  allaying  by  the  sweetness 
of  its  enchantments  the  turbulence  and  pas- 
sion of  every-day  life.  Ah,  my  beloved !  I 
have  known  days  of  darkness  and  weariness, 
days  of  worry  and  vain  strife,  days  even  of 
cowardice  and  sloth,  when  the  memory  of 
that  song,  sung  so  long  ago,  has  broken  in 
on  my  morbid  thought  with  its  revelations  of 
exalted  purity,  of  aspiration,  and  of  achieve- 
ment!" 

You  were  silent  for  some  time,  occupied 
with  thoughts  of  the  past,  and  as  I  gazed  at 
you  I  remembered  how  God  seemed,  to  my 
dim  understanding,  to  have  dealt  hardly  with 
you,  and  I  wondered  much.  But  all  that  I 
could  say  then  was  that  I  did  not  under- 
stand, knowing    the  great  sorrow  of  your 


^tV'mmniBoor'  87 

life,  how  you  had  retained  such  a  simple  joy- 
ousness  of  spirit.  As  you  raised  your  face 
I  saw  once  again  that  pure  and  marvellous 
light  playing  upon  it,  as  though  already  you 
stood  at  the  foot  of  God's  throne.  It  was 
such  a  light  as  the  sorrow-stricken  Dante 
must  have  seen  in  the  face  of  the  "  compas- 
sionate lady"  who  looked  out  of  the  window 
upon  him  as  he  walked,  and  consoled  him. 

"  Our  great  Father  never  leaves  us  long  in 
the  garish  desert-places  without  some  such 
compassionate  redemption  as  these  few  days 
have  brought  to  us,"  you  said.  "We  could 
not  live  our  life  steadily  and  wholesomely 
without  these  occasional  days  of  beauty,  of 
joyous  fellowship,  of  hallowed  communion : 
days  which  become  sweet  and  sacred  mem- 
ories, rendering  fragrant  the  heaviest  atmos- 
phere. Some  time  in  the  future  you  will  be 
glad  that  this  day  and  all  the  other  days 
have  been.  They  will  come  back  to  you, 
my  dear  heart,  transformed  into  something 
wonderfully  refined  and  precious,  altogether 
surpassing  your  present  so  imperfect  ap- 
prehension." 

So  you  talked,  opening  up  to  me  a  new 


88  €up))to^^nt 

and  beautiful  spiritual  world,  not  wholly  by 
the  actual  words  you  spake,  but  by  the  evi- 
dent experience  and  faith  that  lay  securely 
behind.  And  on  returning  to  the  hotel  that 
night  my  prayers  proved  unsatisfactory  for 
the  unsuspected  needs  that  were  being  awak- 
ened in  my  soul ;  and  for  the  first  time  in 
many  years  I  abjured  all  formulas,  never  to 
resort  to  them  again,  praying  simply  as  those 
needs  prompted.  For  God  was  no  longer 
conceived  as  afar  off  in  isolated  splendour. 
He  had  drawn  strangely,  intimately  near  in 
the  last  hours,  and  prayer  became  natural 
and  inevitable. 


A  Paradise 
without  a  Serpent 


(topl^rojstne 


91 


A  Paradise 
without  a  Serpent 

S  the  days  sped 
past  with  eager, 
perfumed  feet, 
we  lost  all  that 
prescension  of  a 
possible  swift  ap- 
proach of  sor- 
row which  had 
at  times,  in  spite 
of  us,  laid  sud- 
den, chilly  fingers  on  our  lips  and  quieted 
our  joy  during  the  earlier  days  of  our  sweet 
fellowship.  The  sun,  the  wind,  the  sea, 
and  above  all  the  immortal  love  that  had 
homed  in  your  heart,  seemed  to  have  stimu- 
lated a  vitality,  perhaps  never  quite  sound, 
into  something  very  like  health  if  not  robust- 
ness.   And  we  were  easily  deceived;  blindly 


92  €nvt)vo^^m  anD 

believing  what  we  longed  to  believe.  As  for 
me,  the  grave  love  of  you  filled  my  whole 
being,  dominating  every  thought  and  desire. 
Nature  herself  stayed  amicably  accordant  with 
our  spirits,  and  the  joy  of  living  grew  apace. 
That  dear  delight  in  each  other,  that  gracious 
liberty  of  God's  broad  earth  and  broader  sea, 
the  sun's  warm  caress,  the  fresh  fragrance 
of  all  outdoor  things  —  how  delicious  it  all 
was,  how  intoxicating!  Yea,  God  was  every- 
where in  those  days,  and  it  was  as  though 
the  great  Adversary  had  forgotten  us :  leaving 
us  there  in  a  Paradise  without  a  serpent. 

A  part  of  each  day  was  devoted  to  the 
"  Golden  Book."  We  read  leisurely  but  talked 
much,  not  restrainingspeech  monk-wise  within 
limits  of  the  text.  Nay !  for  whatever  might 
be  the  beginning,  the  end  would  rise  swiftly 
and  surely  to  thoughts  concerning  love: 
what  she  was,  how  she  came  to  us,  and  all 
her  goodly,  soft  ways  and  subtle  winsome- 
ness.  For  love  to  us  was  no  weary,  satiated 
thing,  grown  old  and  wrinkled  by  years 
of  misuse  and  treachery,  but  virginal  like 
early  spring,  with  eyes  that  shone  as  with 
undried  dews,  and  lips  that  laughed  aloud 


in  innocent  mirth,  and  untroubled  brow  white 
and  clear,  and  arms  that  bore  all  manner 
of  precious  fruits  and  flowers;  and  the  fra- 
grance of  her  breath  was  like  the  woods  at 
dawn.  Yea,. love  to  us  was  the  gift  of  God, 
and  right  tenderly  we  cherished  her.  But  no 
words  that  may  be  written  for  the  sons  of  men 
to  read  can  express  the  half  of  what  love 
brought  to  us,  or  of  the  wondrous  speech 
she  taught  you,  my  Euphrosyne.  I  must 
stay  content  to  set  down  your  other  words, 
still  treasuring  in  my  heart  those  that  always 
followed. 

We  talked  often  of  Marius  himself:  that 
rare  incarnation  of  whatever  was  choice  in 
the  debased  Epicureanism  of  his  day  — 
of  his  exclusive  care  for  perfect  harmony 
of  living  and  reflection  —  of  his  genius  for 
friendship ;  even  Flavian  not  seeming  so  cor- 
rupt in  association  with  him  —  and  of  his 
great  sincerities. 

One  beautiful  morning  when  we  were  on 
the  rocks,  you  in  your  old  place,  the  giant's 
chair  of  love,  and  I  in  my  old  place,  the 
grass  at  your  feet,  you  showed  me  the  quota- 
tion from  Goethe  that  you  had  printed  in 


94  Cupi^rojstne  and 

small,  neat  characters  on  the  title-page  of  each 
volume : 

"/ot   Ganzen^  Guten^  Wahren  resolut  zu  leben.^* 

That  was  the  meaning  of  the  whole  book, 
you  thought.  If  Marius  had  lived  in  the 
age  of  Goethe,  that  sentence  would  have  been 
one  of  his  most  cherished  watchwords.  He 
would  have  measured  himself  by  it,  and 
Goethe  also.  We  ought  not  to  forget  that 
Marius  was  essentially  all  his  life  a  poet. 
It  is  a  poet's  conception,  not  a  mere  philoso- 
pher's, that  informs  all  his  meditations.  He 
was  never  wholly  Epicurean,  not  even  in  the 
sense  of  Epicurus  himself,  but  was  rather  an 
eclectic  in  the  midst  of  the  varying  philoso- 
phies then  much  in  vogue;  choosing  here 
and  rejecting  there,  always  deliberately,  after 
due  thought,  and  always  with  a  true  instinct 
for  what  would  prove  a  stimulus  in  the 
direction  of  a  perfect  attainment.  Certainly, 
pleasure,  to  him,  was  not  to  be  sought  for 
in  any  common,  vulgar  manner.  The  very 
word  had  a  different  and  higher  significance 
in  the  thought  of  Marius  than  it  had  in 
that  of  his  acknowledged  philosophic  master. 


The  great  end  of  living  was  "not  pleasure 
but  fulness,  completeness  of  life  generally." 
That  was  one  of  the  weightiest  axioms  Marius 
hugged  close  to  his  heart,  and  it  already  lifted 
him  far  above  Epicurus:  making  him  critic 
rather  than  pupil.  He  seemed  always  to 
shrink,  with  a  keen  moral  repugnance,  from 
everything  that  was  dangerously  incomplete, 
however  pleasant  and  inviting  it  might  appear 
for  the  moment.  "To  be  perfect  with  re- 
gard to  what  was  here  and  now"  —  yes,  that 
was  his  constant  endeavour,  but  always  with 
a  questioning  of  himself  as  to  how  this  or 
that  would  look  in  the  maturity  of  his  judg- 
ment: as  to  what  might  be  its  "impression 
for  the  memory."  He  never  for  a  fleeting 
moment,  you  said,  lost  that  sincere  recog- 
nition of  his  responsibility  towards  others 
which  came  to  him  so  early  in  life.  What 
perfect  moral  insight  went  to  the  formation 
of  his  judgment  of  the  wicked  indifference  to 
suffering  of  Marcus  Aurelius  during  the  glad- 
iatorial games !  That  impatience  and  indig- 
nation at  the  tolerance  of  the  "wise  emperor" 
was  one  of  the  grand  moments  in  the  career 
of  Marius.    What  a  noble  passage  that  was 


96  Cupi^tojs^ne  anD 

which  summed  up  his  final  reflections  on  the 
ghastly  scene  !  "Yes;  what  was  wanting  was 
the  heart  that  would  make  it  impossible  to 
witness  all  this;  and  the  future  would  be 
with  the  forces  that  could  beget  a  heart  like 
that.  His  favourite  philosophy  had  said,  Trust 
the  eye;  strive  to  be  right  always  regard- 
ing the  concrete  experience;  never  falsify 
your  impressions.  And  its  sanction  had  been 
at  least  effective  here,  in  saying.  It  is  what 
I  may  not  see!  Surely  evil  was  a  real  thing; 
and  the  wise  man  wanting  in  the  sense  of  it, 
where  not  to  have  been,  by  instinctive  elec- 
tion, on  the  right  side,  was  to  have  failed 
in  life." 

This  acceptance  on  the  part  of  Marius 
of  the  fundamental  truths  of  the  conscience, 
you  said,  was  what  kept  him  erect  through 
all  his  experimenting  with  Epicureanism. 
Such  a  definite  consecration  of  himself  to  the 
dictates  of  a  conscience  clean  and  wholesome 
from  childhood,  such  a  "  strong  tendency  to 
moral  assents,"  carried  him,  on  his  journey 
in  life,  to  a  great  distance  from  Epicurus : 
to  a  very  close  proximity  to  Christ.  How 
instinctively,  both  before  and  after  that  crisis 


in  the  amphitheatre,  he  saw  the  nobler  aspect 
of  every  moral  issue  that  presented  itself  to 
him,  either  in  the  region  of  pure  thought  or 
in  that  of  a  "  concrete  experience" — not  see- 
ing it  only,  but  electing  to  stand  alongside  of, 
to  become  part  of,  the  nobility  he  discerned ! 
Later  he  seemed  to  decide  everything  with 
reference  to  a  deepening  impression  of  a  pos- 
sible "  final  home  to  be  attained  at  some  still 
remote  date."  How  beautiful  that  "white 
bird,"  his  own  soul  was!  And  the  relation 
of  how  he  kept  it  unsoiled  amid  the  filth  of 
the  world's  market-places  —  how  beautiful 
that  was  also  !     Did  I  not  think  so  ? 

I  remember  saying  that  there  were  some 
men  who  condemned  the  whole  delineation 
of  the  character  of  Marius  as  a  piece  of  "  spe- 
cial pleading"  on  behalf  of  Epicureanism. 

That  was  to  fall  into  complete  error,  you 
thought.  Mr.  Pater  had  presented  the  case 
for  Epicureanism  as  fairly  and  as  fully  as  it 
was  possible  to  do,  and  as  he  was  entitled  to 
do  ;  yet  he  criticised  all  the  time  with  a  keen 
impressibility  of  the  infinite  distance,  as  of  a 
wide  sea  which  no  actual  or  imaginary  bridge 
might  span,  separating  the  highest  dreams 


98  Cupi^ro^tne  anD 

of  the  ancients  from  any  "  Christian  vision 
whatsoever."  Surely  one  must  have  read 
very  superficially,  or  else  with  strong  par- 
tiality for  preconceived  prejudices,  not  to  see 
that.  It  seemed  to  you  the  recognition  of 
such  an  existing  infinite  distance  lay  behind 
every  beautiful  chapter,  and  was  the  main 
force  at  work  in  Mr.  Pater's  mind  and  heart, 
influencing  his  development  of  the  character 
of  Marius  at  every  step.  Why !  Marius  vir- 
tually abandoned  his  philosophy  at  the  end. 
This  Mr.  Pater  would  not  have  allowed,  even 
in  an  obscure  manner,  had  he  meant  to  exalt 
Epicureanism  above  its  legitimate  place. 

The  first  Sunday  in  September,  we  wor- 
shipped together  in  a  beautiful  little  church, 
the  pulpit  of  which  during  the  summer  season 
was  supplied  by  various  prominent  preachers 
of  the  religious  denomination  it  represented. 
The  preacher  on  this  occasion  was  a  man 
about  fifty  years  old :  a  spare  man  of  medium 
height,  with  graying  hair,  restless  dark  eyes, 
and  an  immense  vivacity  of  speech  and  action. 
The  sermon,  I  remember,  was  on  Nicodemus, 
and  the  preacher  had  much  to  say  about  the 


l^er  ^^  (Bolhtn  OBoofe "  99 

influence  of  culture  on  life  and  character. 
Words  and  phrases  like  "humanism,"  "wor- 
ship of  the  beautiful,"  "  God-estranged  de- 
velopment," "selfish  cultivation  of  the  indi- 
vidual faculties,"  were  of  frequent  recurrence, 
and  always  accompanied  by  an  accent  of 
depreciation  which  seemed  to  be  wholly 
pleasing  to  the  majority  of  the  worshippers. 
Though  it  was  evident  that  his  reading  was 
of  a  distinctly  secondary  order  —  his  mental 
powers  agreeing  therewith  —  he  supplied 
what  was  lacking  in  "fundamental  brain- 
work  "  by  a  copious  and  rapid  flow  of  words. 
It  was  easy  to  understand  wherein  his  great 
popularity  lay.  He  never  once,  throughout 
a  discourse  lasting  forty  minutes,  lifted  the 
thought  of  that  congregation  above  a  very 
ordinary  level ;  but  there  was  about  the  man 
himself  a  noticeable  spirituality  —  not,  per- 
haps, an  actual  restoration  of  the  lost  grace 
of  unction,  but  as  near  an  approach  to  it  as 
a  somewhat  shallow  nature  could  admit.  And 
this  fervour  redeemed  from  absolute  con- 
temptibility  many  of  his  morbid  criticisms  of  a 
life  so  far  removed  from  him  as  to  seem  an- 
tagonistic to  his  exposition  of  Christian  prin- 


loo  dBupljtojStne  anD 

ciples.  He  nowhere  admitted  a  possible 
culture  not  external,  but  having  its  roots 
hidden  deep  in  the  necessities  of  the  soul. 
The  idea  that  men  and  women  of  certain 
legitimate  interests  and  tempers  demanded 
that  the  soul's  life  should  have  artistic  ex- 
pression given  to  it,  that  there  should  be 
some  correspondence  between  the  outer 
things  and  the  inner  vision,  and  that  Chris- 
tianity did  actually  take  account  of  these  men 
and  women,  seemed  never  to  have  entered 
within  his  intellectual  horizon.  Neither 
was  the  thought  conceivable  to  him  of  a  re- 
generation coming  as  the  crowning  revela- 
tion, to  the  very  verge  of  which  a  purely 
moral  or  aesthetic  culture  might  lead  a  sen- 
sitive soul.  Christianity  and  culture  were 
wholly  inimical  to  each  other;  or,  to  employ 
his  own  phrasing,  "  they  were  roads  leading 
in  opposite  directions,  and  he  who  had  set 
out  for  culture  could  not  hope  to  reach  the 
cross  except  he  turn  back."  The  preacher 
had  forgotten  that  even  so  beautiful  a  soul 
as  St.  John  acknowledged  the  presence  of  a 
various  light  that  lighted  every  man  coming 
into  the  world.     To  him  all  human  culture 


1$tt  ^' (Bomnisoo^''  loi 

was  darkness,  having  no  place  nor  office 
among  the  forces  which  made  for  spiritual 
righteousness.  And  he  missed  altogether 
the  great  significance  of  Jesus  Christ's  intel- 
lectual treatment  of  Nicodemus*  own  spir- 
itual difficulties. 

Even  to  this  day  I  cannot  turn  to  the  last 
few  chapters  of  the  "  Golden  Book  "  without 
seeing  once  again  that  thin,  animated  face, 
and  the  small  crowd  of  worshippers  earnestly 
devout,  at  least  for  an  hour,  amid  the  frivol- 
ities of  a  seaside  town  just  springing  into 
fashionable  notice.  For  it  was  during  the 
conversation  which  arose  some  hours  after- 
wards, and  for  which  tTie  sermon  was  largely 
responsible,  that  you  found  expression  for 
much  of  your  thought  regarding  the  attitude 
of  Marius  and  Walter  Pater  towards  Chris- 
tianity: we  found  it  impossible  to  separate 
them  in  our  thought,  the  subjective  interest 
being  so  dominant  that  created  and  creator 
were  as  one. 

The  days  were  shortening  so  rapidly  that 
the  evening  had  seemed  to  close  over  the 
lovely  Sabbath  much  earlier  than  usual. 
September  was  already  promising  an  unquiet 


102  €up]^ro)8tne  anD 

autumn,  and  people  who  had  arrived  near 
the  end  of  the  season  expecting  mild,  warm 
weather  were  surprised  by  the  coldness  of 
the  nights.  Fires  were  blazing  within  doors 
almost  before  the  sun  had  dipped  beyond 
the  distant  marge  of  the  sea ;  and  only  hardy 
persons,  fearing  no  winds  however  chill,  paced 
the  cliffs  after  six  o'clock.  But  long  before 
that  hour  I  was  buried  in  a  luxurious  arm- 
chair by  your  fireside,  making  great  pre- 
tense of  reading,  but  furtively  watching  you 
as  you  flitted  here  and  there  hurrying  love's 
elaborate  preparation  for  the  evening  meal. 
How  startled  I  would  appear  when  you 
would  steal  behind  my  chair  and  kiss  me 
suddenly  on  the  forehead,  or  drop  some 
early  autumn  crocuses  on  the  open  page  of 
the  book !  With  such  simple  joys  the  Lord 
of  the  Sabbath  fed  our  souls  that  evening. 
Then,  when  the  lamps  were  lit  and  the  cur- 
tains drawn  close  across  the  window,  and 
fresh  turf  and  coals  heaped  upon  the  fire, 
what  sacred  confidences,  what  exchange  of 
the  deep  things  of  the  spirit,  passed  between 
us  two !  But  these  things  —  let  any  true 
lover  say  if  they  can  be  written  down. 


l^er ''(0olDenl5oofe'^  103 

At  last,  however,  we  did  revert  to  Marius 
and  the  sermon  we  had  heard  in  the  morning. 
I  had  remarked  that  I  was  afraid  that  our 
preacher,  and  others  who  claimed  spiritual 
kinship  with  him,  would  object  to  the  Chris- 
tianity of  Marius  as  being  only  one  phase  of 
a  various  culture  all  tending  to  a  perfecting 
of  self;  and  would  say  that  at  its  highest  it 
was  probably  very  little  more  than  a  subli- 
mated Epicureanism. 

Yes,  such  an  objection  might  be  made, 
you  thought,  with  a  nearer  approach  to  va- 
lidity than  the  characterization  of  Marius  I 
had  imagined.  Perhaps  there  had  been  a 
subtle  appeal  to  the  senses  in  his  first  contact 
with  the  Christians,  but  it  was,  after  all,  "  the 
touching  image  of  Jesus  "  that  gave  him  that 
inexplicable  sense  of  peace  and  satisfaction 
near  the  close  of  his  life.  It  was  true  that 
Christianity  was  one  phase  of  his  culture, 
but  it  was  the  last  and  highest  phase :  being 
the  goal  to  which  he  had  been,  by  many  de- 
vious paths,  unconsciously  journeying.  To 
expect  Marius  to  be  other  than  he  was,  to  do 
other  than  he  did,  was  to  show  a  strange  lack 
of  historical  perspective  and  spiritual  insight. 


I04  Cupl^rojjttte  ann 

His  intellectual  and  spiritual  attitude  towards 
the  new  religion  was  perfectly  sincere,  and 
in  sweet  and  strict  accord  with  all  his  past. 
Christianity  came  to  Marius  last,  and  after 
years  of  lonely  adventuring  in  philosophic 
wildernesses,  and  it  was  in  no  wise  repugnant 
to  him ;  nay,  rather  it  was  welcome :  and 
this  revealed  how  far  he  had  journeyed  apart 
from  the  true  Epicurean  to  whom  Chris- 
tianity was  a  hateful  thing.  On  first  real 
acquaintance  Marius  surmised  that  this  new 
and  beautiful  religion  was  more  than  a  mere 
philosophy,  and  that  it  might  make  "  a  de- 
mand for  something  from  him  in  return," 
that  it  might  even  change  the  whole  current 
of  his  life  so  that  "  he  could  never  again  be 
altogether  as  he  had  been  before."  Yet  he 
welcomed  it,  growing  gradually  into  a  clearer 
apprehension  of  the  Source  from  which  it  all 
sprang.  It  seemed  inconceivable  to  you, 
how  otherwise  Christianity  could  have  come 
to  him.  There  were  surely  more  paths  than 
the  one  the  morning  preacher  spoke  of  by 
which  a  soul  might  attain  to  precise  know- 
ledge of  its  own  place  and  function  in  the 
"general  scheme"   of  the  universe;  might 


l$tt ''  (BoMn  l3oofe  *'  105 

reach — to  use  the  preacher's  language  again — 
the  Cross.  One  man  might  hope  to  gain  the 
beatific  vision  by  self-flagellations,  in  per- 
verse solitude,  or  in  a  magnificent  martyr- 
dom. But  to  a  personality  like  Marius, 
though  not  wanting,  as  events  proved,  in 
those  elements  which  render  man  capable  of 
the  most  splendid  sacrifices,  such  things  as 
"  means  to  an  end  "  were  worthless.  Chris- 
tianity could  only  come  to  him  in  the  sense 
of  a  perfect  spiritual  addition — his  spiritual 
instincts  being  always  dominant — to  what 
had  already  established  itself  in  his  refined 
and  sensitive  soul.  Had  Mr.  Pater  chosen 
any  other  manner  of  its  presentation  it  was 
difficult  to  see  how  he  could  have  avoided 
doing  violence  to  all  sense  of  moral  and 
artistic  proportion.  How  beautiful  the  re- 
ligious seriousness  of  Marius  was !  From 
those  earlier  times,  when  the  religion  of 
Numa  challenged  him  to  ponderings  on  the 
Divine  nature,  until  long  after  the  death  of 
Flavian,  when  he  felt  once  again  "  the  sense 
of  a  friendly  hand  laid  upon  him  amid  the 
shadows  of  the  world,"  he  seemed  to  have 
"had  frequent  intimations  of  a  possible  benign 


io6  €up]^ro)2j^ne  anD 

presence  moving  always  behind  the  "  flaming 
barriers  "  :  "  a  heart  even  as  mine  behind  the 
vain  show  of  things."  How  tenderly  and 
reverently,  and  with  what  wonderful  insight, 
Mr.  Pater  wrote  of  early  Christianity  !  In- 
deed, the  significance  of  "  Part  Four "  lay, 
you  thought,  in  the  soft  warmth  and  almost 
fresh  colour,  at  least  the  new  radiance  given 
to  it.  Or  was  it  not  rather  a  literary  return 
to  the  expression  of  the  wonderful  radiance 
as  seen  in  the  Gospel  of  Saint  John  and  in 
the  joyousness  of  the  earliest  Christian  art? 

There  was  one  more  thing  you  said  which 
I  will  set  down  here  and  so  close  this  chap- 
ter. I  had  been  quoting  Matthew  Arnold, 
or  making  some  reference  to  him,  when  you 
said  that  you  thought  Walter  Pater  saw  more 
deeply,  and  with  a  far  more  luminous  eye, 
into  the  heart  of  both  culture  and  Chris- 
tianity than  Matthew  Arnold  had  done,  de- 
fining their  relations  with  closer  accuracy. 
Mr.  Arnold's  definition  of  culture  as  "An 
inward  and  spiritual  activity  having  for  its 
characters  increased  sweetness,  increased  light, 
increased  life,  increased  sympathy,"  was  very 
beautiful;  but  he  was  surely  wanting  in  that 


I^er  ^'  dDiolDen  QBooft "  1 07 

insight  into  the  nature  of  Christianity  which 
would  have  shown  him  that  it  took  into 
itself  all  those  characters  he  imagined  to  be 
the  peculiar  property  of  culture,  and  trans- 
figured them  in  a  passionate  devotion  to  a 
Person  who  had  made  such  things  possible. 
Mr.  Pater  saw  that  although  culture  might 
lead  a  man  to  the  very  door  of  the  Christian 
sanctuary  it  could  by  no  means  "go  beyond 
it."  To  Matthew  Arnold,  Christianity  was 
one  of  the  many  means  towards  attaining  a 
larger  culture,  to  Walter  Pater  it  was  the 
golden  crown  set  high  above  culture.  It  was 
that  which  gave  the  distinction  and  the  dif- 
ference to  the  two  High  Priests  of  culture. 


Behind  the 
'-''Flaming  Barrier sr 


Cupi^rojj^ne 


1 1 1 


u 


Behind  the 
Flaming  Barriers^ 


"^Seven 

UTfor  theiprom- 
ise  made  to  you 
during  the  days 
of  which  I  have 
now  to  write,  I 
would  proceed 
no  further  with 
this  story.  No, 
nor  would  I  have 
ever  set  out  to 
tell  it,  so  endangering  is  it  to  the  sweet  se- 
renity of  these  later  years.  As  it  is,  for 
nearly  eight  years  I  have  been  girding  myself 
with  strength  that  I  may  write  this  single 
chapter  to  which  all  the  rest  is  but  a  pro- 
longed prelude.  One  day  more  of  supreme 
felicity  remained  to  us,  and  then  —  the  be- 
ginning of  the  end! 


1 1 2  €up]^rojs^ne  anD 

Thus  far  I  have  made  no  mention  (How 
could  I,  my  Euphrosyne?)  of  "our"  island 
which  lay  about  a  half-hour's  rowing  distance 
from  the  shore;  yet  that  island  was  one  of 
our  favourite  places  of  retirement.  If  it  had 
a  geographical  name,  we  never  heard  it.  To 
us  it  was  known  always  as  the  Painter's 
Palette  because  of  its  shape,  which  was  like 
an  immense  oval  palette  floating  on  the  sea; 
the  long  curve  being  the  farther  shore.  On 
the  right  of  the  island  as  we  approached  it 
was  an  indentation,  hardly  to  be  called  a  bay, 
and  behind  that,  in  about  the  same  position 
as  the  thumb-hole  in  a  palette,  rose  a  slight 
mound  thickly  covered  with  sweet-smelling 
wild-thyme  and  the  bluest  of  delicate  hare- 
bells. The  rest  of  the  island  was  a  level 
plain  with  nothing  to  obstruct  the  sight  save 
a  few  patches  of  yellowing  corn,  a  field  or 
two  of  potatoes,  one  of  beans  with  black  ugly 
stalks,  and  several  meadows  clothed  in  the 
richest  green  of  aftermath.  In  certain  lights 
it  looked  as  though  an  artist  had  set  his 
palette  for  some  stupendous  work  of  the 
imagination:  and  by  and  by,  as  you  said  one 
day,  if  only  we  waited  long  enough  and  had 


l$tt  ^^  ds^oltien  'Boofe  "  113 

faith,  we  might  see  him  come  and  pick  up 
the  great  palette  and  start  to  work.  On 
stormy  nights  we  would  watch  the  sea,  from 
your  cottage  window,  beating  riotously 
around  the  island,  and  listen  for  the  mighty 
tread  of  the  distant  artist  whose  nearing  foot- 
steps made  the  waves  leap,  half  seriously  ex- 
pecting to  catch  sight  of  this  mythical  creature 
of  our  fancy  and  see  the  palette  disappear 
suddenly  in  his  capacious  grasp;  but  every 
morning,  when  the  sun  came  up,  the  Painter's 
Palette  still  lay  floating  on  the  face  of  the 
waters  awaiting  the  delaying  artist. 

Do  you  remember  still,  Euphrosyne,  in 
that  place  whither  you  have  fled,  how  we 
would  lie  a  whole  day  upon  the  short, 
springy  grass  at  the  base  of  the  mound,  and 
bathe  our  hands  in  the  thyme?  and  how, 
while  I  would  relate  some  wonderful  peasant 
tale  of  the  "little  people"  inhabiting  the 
flowers,  you  would  pluck  those  flowers  and 
arrange  them  in  fancy  groups  for  sketching? 
Do  you  remember  all  this  as  I  do  every 
morning  and  every  night?  How  rapidly  you 
worked,  and  with  what  perfect  grace!  The 
margins  of  my  second  volume  of  "  Marius  " 


114  Cupi^rojs^ne  anD 

are  decorated  with  those  delicate  colour-stud- 
ies, which  look  as  fresh  and  fadeless  as  they 
did  on  the  day  you  placed  them  there.  "This 
must  be  your  harebell  volume,"  you  said 
merrily  the  very  Monday  on  which  we  vis- 
ited the  Painter's  Palette  for  the  last  time. 

What  a  Monday  it  was !  Following  close 
upon  that  beautiful  Sabbath,  it  seemed  to  be 
an  extension  of  it.  We  were  away  early,  with 
all  kinds  of  delicacies  packed  in  our  little 
boat,  for  we  intended  to  stay  as  long  as  the 
sun  warmed  the  grass  under  our  feet.  To- 
night it  seems  to  me,  looking  back  through 
the  mists  of  all  the  intervening  years,  that 
you  were  never  lovelier  than  on  that  morning. 
No  lark  throbbing  up  the  sky  was  ever  half 
so  joyous  as  you  were  wandering  hand-in- 
hand  with  me  about  that  enchanted  island. 
Nothing  would  satisfy  you  but  that  you  must 
leave  some  of  your  joy  in  the  three  lonely 
cottages  on  the  far  shore  —  a  full  mile  dis- 
tant from  our  landing-place.  So,  after  rob- 
bing the  boat  of  a  portion  of  its  delicacies, 
we  set  off,  that  you,  with  your  wonderful 
smile  and  shining  face,  might  make  glad  the 
hearts  of  five  little  children.     And  when  we 


^tvmiunisoor'  115 

returned  how  tired  you  were! — not  alone  be- 
cause of  the  walk,  but  because  something  of 
your  spirit  had  been  left  among  those  sim- 
ple cottagers. 

When  I  had  brought  cushions  from  the 
boat  and  placed  them  under  your  head  as 
you  lay  on  the  side  of  the  mound,  I  heaped 
armsfiil  of  wild-thyme  and  harebells  over 
you,  and  we  laughed  and  kissed  beneath  the 
golden  sun  as  though  untold  years  of  love 
and  fellowship  stretched  invitingly  before  us. 
Then  I  told  you  a  story — editing  it  but  a 
little  —  that  I  had  heard  from  one  of  the 
children  in  the  cottages.  How  that  years 
and  years  ago,  before  her  father's  father  was 
born,  the  great  clusters  of  harebells  which 
now  crowned  the  mound  did  not  grow  there 
at  all,  but  down  on  the  plain  near  the  other 
shore.  And  how  her  father's  father  —  no,  it 
was  her  father's  father's  father,  used  to  see 
the  "  little  people "  every  night  when  the 
moon  was  up  visiting  each  other  and  playing 
funny  Httle  games  together.  Sometimes  he 
would  hear  music  and  singing,  but  he  never 
could  see  the  harps  and  things  they  made 
their  music  on.     But  one  morning  when  he 


ii6  €upliro)8^ne  anD 

woke  and  looked  out  of  the  window  there 
were  no  harebells  to  be  seen;  nothing  but  soft, 
dirty  earth  where  the  night  before  the  blue 
carpet  had  been.  He  could  not  imagine 
where  they  had  gone,  until  looking  across  the 
island  he  saw  that  a  mound  had  been  built 
in  the  night-time  and  it  was  covered  with  the 
flowers,  who  were  all  fast  asleep.  The  faeries 
had  carried  them  away  in  the  darkness  and 
raised  the  little  mound  that  they  might  watch 
the  moon  dancing  on  the  waters,  without 
leaving  their  flowery  houses.  "Wasn't  it 
good  of  them  to  build  the  hill  where  it  did 
not  hurt  anybody's  land?"  the  little  child 
had  said.  "  Father  says  we  ought  not  to 
tread  on  the  flowers,  because  if  we  did  some- 
one would  be  homeless." 

So  I  repeated  this  story  to  you  on  the  very 
hill  the  "  little  people  "  had  set  up,  and  some- 
how ending  upon  the  word  "homeless"  it 
seemed  to  make  us  both  sad  at  heart,  and  for 
some  time  we  gazed  silently  out  across  the 
sea.  For  several  minutes  it  seemed  to  us 
that  the  whole  world  had  become  suddenly 
houseless  and  homeless.  But  I  doubt  if  any- 
thing except  the  presence  of  an  actual  per- 


l^ef  d^olDeniBoofi"  117 

sonal  sorrow  could  have  permanently  shattered 
our  high  spirits  that  day,  and  we  were  soon 
as  merry  as  ever. 

Precisely  in  what  manner  we  filled  the 
early  hours  of  that  afternoon  I  cannot  now 
recollect,  because  of  the  things  that  came 
afterwards;  but  I  do  remember  pleading  with 
you,  in  spite  of  your  prohibition  of  the  sub- 
ject, to  allow  our  marriage  to  take  place : 
urging  your  already  so  greatly  improved 
health,  and  offering  to  take  you  away — any- 
where. And  how  well  I  remember  your 
sweet  vacillation,  your  half-promise  to  decide 
on  the  morrow  !  The  morrow — ah!  my  love, 
it  was  God  who  decided  then !  You  kissed 
me,  on  the  lips  and  on  the  eyes,  "to  banish 
the  sadness  which  is  stealing  into  them,"  you 
said. 

It  was  just  at  that  moment  that  the  first 
drops  of  rain  fell.  Quite  suddenly,  without 
the  least  forewarning,  immense  black  clouds 
had  massed  in  the  sky,  and  a  close  blinding 
rain  came  on  swift  feet  as  though  driven 
across  the  sea  by  some  unseen,  malignant 
Fury.  There  was  absolutely  no  shelter,  the 
cottages  being  on  the  other  side  of  the  island, 


ii8  €up]^ro)8^ne  and 

and  in  less  than  fifteen  minutes  we  were 
drenched,  for  our  light  clothing  offered  us  no 
protection  against  such  a  storm.  I  do  not 
believe  that  it  lasted  longer  than  twenty 
minutes,  and  it  ceased  as  abruptly  as  it  had 
started.  By  the  time  we  were  half-way  to 
the  mainland  the  sun  was  shining  as  brightly 
and  the  sea  heaving  as  steadily  as  if  the  tor- 
rents of  rain  had  been  but  a  projection  of  our 
fancy.  If  one  believes  in  an  informing  spirit 
at  work  in  natural  things,  one  can  hardly 
escape  the  conviction,  absurd  though  it  may 
be,  of  a  sense  of  fantastic  mockery  and  utter 
heartlessness  in  such  sudden  mutations.  And 
glad  as  we  were  to  have  the  sunshine,  we  felt, 
rather  than  saw,  the  lurking  sarcasm  behind 
the  smiling  sky.  But  we  were  not  greatly 
perturbed,  nor  had  we  any  fear  of  possible 
untoward  results  following  the  drenching. 
You  went  directly  home,  taking  every  pre- 
caution against  chills. 

In  about  an  hour  I  rejoined  you  at  the 
cottage;  and  that  evening  was  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  I  have  ever  known.  You 
told  me  all  things  concerning  yourself;  of 
your  many  travels  with  your  father;  of  his 


"^tv  ^^  (BolDen  l3oofe "  119 

death ;  of  your  two  years'  loneliness ;  and  of 
the  great  joy  that  couched  in  your  heart  now. 
How  subdued  it  all  was  :  the  mingling  of  our 
tears  being  a  renewed  consecration  of  fellow- 
ship! You  said  that  you  had  wanted  room 
in  which  to  live  and  that  I  had  given  it  to 
you ;  that  there  was  nothing  noble,  nor  true, 
nor  grand  in  me  that  was  not  yours  also,  as 
the  sunshine,  and  the  flowers,  and  the  moun- 
tains were  yours :  investing  me  with  attri- 
butes of  which — God  forgive  me  —  I  knew 
nothing.  What  divine  gods  loving  women 
make  of  us  lovers  of  clay !  And  many  other 
precious  things  you  said  which  my  heart  alone 
may  know,  and  know  only  for  its  humbling. 
I  left  you  earlier  than  usual  because  you 
looked  tired.  And  as  we  stood  breast  to 
breast  for  the  kiss  of  benediction,  as  you 
called  it,  God  kindly  gave  no  sign  that  we 
should  stand  there  no  more  forever. 

The  deepest  tragedies  of  life  do  not  come 
to  us  with  any  dramatic  accessories,  but  alone 
and  in  simple  state,  with  no  fine  flourish  of 
trumpets ;  with  none  of  those  theatrical 
effects  out  of  which  the  mind  might  extract 


1 20  Cupi^rojstne  anD 

some  little  alleviation.  They  creep  upon  us 
gently,  noiselessly,  almost  unawares,  and  are 
not  recognized  as  tragedies  until  afterwards, 
when  they  have  gained  a  sure  entrance  into 
our  life,  there  to  stay  through  all  the  unre- 
lieving  years.  Or,  what  is  perhaps  more 
awful  still,  they  are  felt  as  dimly  possible 
long  before  the  actual  note  has  struck ;  and 
on  looking  backwards  we  can  scarcely  say, 
"At  this  moment,  or  at  that,  the  tragedy  of 
my  life  began  ";  for  it  seems  that  the  tragic 
note  had  ever  been  trembling  in  the  air 
around  us,  being  at  times  distinctly  audible 
prior  to  any  precise  moment  of  which  we  are 
able  to  give  fair  account;  even  the  joy  pre- 
ponderating so  largely  until,  it  may  be,  the 
very  day  of  our  forced  recognition  of  the 
inevitable,  seeming  now  to  have  been  not  the 
least  powerful  element  in  the  long  tragedy. 

I  do  not  say,  then,  that  the  tragic  note 
entered  my  life  on  that  particular  Tuesday 
morning — for  it  was  most  surely  there  from 
the  first  moment  of  our  soul's  union,  though 
the  sound  of  it  was  muffled,  almost  lost  amid 
the  richer  music  of  those  hallowed  weeks — 
but  only  that  when  I  went  as  usual  in  search 


i^er''(0olDenOBoofe"  121 

of  you,  and  the  little  golden-haired  maid  met 
me  at  the  door  with  a  sorrowful  counte- 
nance, saying  you  were  very  unwell  and  that 
I  was  to  go  upstairs  at  once,  I  distinctly 
heard  within  me  a  low  moan  as  of  far-distant 
thunder,  and  I  knew  that  your  hour  and 
mine  was  nigh  at  hand. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  fortunate  of  cir- 
cumstances, but  one  for  which  we  are  seldom 
grateful,  that  the  senses  often  fall  into  a  state 
of  utter  apathy  under  the  first  great  shock 
of  calamity.  Were  it  not  for  this  merciful 
suspension  of  sensation  we  might  become 
wholly  incapacitated  for  ministering  to  the 
needs  of  others  —  our  sorrow  degenerating 
into  a  pitiful  egotism.  Yet  how  readily  we 
blame  ourselves  afterwards  for  that  lack  of 
feeling  which  made  us  for  the  time  being 
able  and  discreet  helpers.  I  am  sure  this 
must  be  a  most  commonplace  occurrence,  yet 
the  mention  of  it  in  this  place  seems,  at  least 
to  me,  to  be  necessitated;  for  I  do  not  re- 
member that  I  ever  entered  a  sick-room 
more  composedly  in  all  my  professional 
career,  although  the  tranquillity  lasted  but  a 
little  while. 


122  (iEup]^ro0tne  anu 

We  greeted  each  other  with  calm  tender- 
ness, though  I  fancied  you  grew  watchfully 
apprehensive  lest  you  should  betray  the  fear 
that  lay  in  your  heart.  And  as  I  caught  the 
first  and  only  expression  of  weariness  in  your 
face  that  I  ever  saw  there,  I  knew  the  worst. 
Yet  the  overwhelming  pity  that  surged  in 
my  heart  was  not  for  myself,  but  appeared 
to  spring  from  mixed  impressions  of  an  aged 
and  saddened  world  being  robbed  of  that 
which  it  could  so  ill  spare,  and  a  certain  pagan 
regret  that  so  fair  a  creature  must  shortly  be 
laid  out  of  sight  forever.  I  do  not  account  or 
apologize  for  this,  I  simply  state  it  frankly. 
As  human  beings  we  are  far  less  responsible 
for  the  first  emotions  that  master  us  than  we 
are  apt  to  give  ourselves  credit.  And  the 
impersonality  of  my  pity  struck  me  curiously 
even  amid  the  varying  emotions  of  the  mo- 
ment. It  was  as  though  I,  the  one  man, 
stood  as  the  representative  of  my  kindred, 
and  the  pity  then  awakened  in  me  as  I  gazed 
at  your  sad,  beautiful  face  was  a  sublime 
pity  embracing  universal  man.  Then  the 
realization  of  the  personal  sorrow  took  full 
possession  of  my  being ;  everything  else  faded 


i$tt''(Bomni5oor'  123 

away  and  only  you  and  I  were  left.  I  heard 
you  saying,  as  if  you  had  been  speaking  for 
some  time: 

"  But  you  must  tell  me  plainly  what  you 
think." 

"  Ah !  but  can  you  bear  it,  my  Euphros- 
yne?"  I  said. 

With  the  mention  of  that  dear  name,  used 
now  for  the  first  time  in  sadness,  your  face 
lighted  up  once  more  till  it  seemed  as  if  a 
gleam  of  glory  quivered  about  your  bed. 

"  Yes,  I  must  be  ^  Euphrosyne  '  still,  my 
beloved!  ....  The  Lady  of  Joy!"  you 
murmured. 

Then  remembering  what  I  had  asked, 
there  came  into  your  face  a  look  of  profound 
pity  and  inquiry;  and  you  stretched  out 
your  hands,  resting  them  on  my  arm. 

"  It  is  I,  not  you,  who  ought  to  ask  that. 
O  my  soul's  husband,  can  you  bear  it?" 

Your  questioning,  pitying  eyes  almost  un- 
manned me,  but  I  stooped  and  kissed  you, 
giving  some  kind  of  assurance,  and  then  com- 
menced a  thorough  examination,  prolonging 
it  purposely  in  order  that  I  might  gain  more 
perfect  command  of  myself.     When  it  was 


1 24  €up]^ro)3i?ne  and 

over  my  worst  fears  were  confirmed,  and  I 
went  downstairs  to  send  off  the  little  maid 
with  a  telegram  for  my  favourite  nurse. 
When  I  returned  you  did  not  speak,  but 
looked  steadily  and  lovingly  into  my  eyes ; 
and  as  I  drew  a  chair  close  to  the  bedside, 
you  placed  your  hand  in  mine,  lying  perfectly 
still  for  a  long  time.  I  did  not  dare  to  look 
at  you,  but  gazed  stonily  out  of  the  window 
at  the  sea,  which  seemed,  to  my  excited  fancy, 
to  be  calling,  calling  to  us  to  come  out  and 
play.     By  and  by  you  said  : 

"  My  husband  !  "  It  was  always  "  hus- 
band "  after  this,  even  to  the  nurse  when  she 
arrived.  "  My  husband,  how  long  may  I 
have  to  stay  with  you? " 

"Three  or  four  days  at  the  longest,"  I 
said. 

"  So  long  as  that !  .  .  .  God  is  good !  .  .  . 
and  ...  we  have  still  our  love.  Think  !  four 
days  more  of  it  .  .  .  and  then  .  .  .  the  bosom 
of ...  God ! " 

After  another  prolonged  silence  we  com- 
menced to  speak  of  immediate  things,  and  I 
told  you  that  already  a  special  nurse  had 
been  sent  for,  and  that  she  might  be  with  us 


f  ef  dDiolDen  OBoofe"  125 

by  nightfall ;  that  I  must  have  the  local 
doctor  called  in  the  afternoon  for  consulta- 
tion. You  demurred  a  little  at  this,  but  when 
I  explained  the  professional  necessity  of  it, 
and  assured  you  that  it  would  be  quite  formal, 
you  consented.  And  the  great  tragedy  in  the 
background  grew  clearer  and  more  ghastly 
as  the  inevitable  business  which  it  had  sud- 
denly forced  into  dreadful  prominence  was 
transacted  by  us  two  that  morning. 

It  is  impossible  to  write  much  about  those 
intervening  days,  for  from  Tuesday  until  the 
Sunday  seems  one  long  night  to  me  now, 
with  here  and  there  flashes  of  wonderful 
daylight.  The  nurse  arrived  that  evening, 
and  I  told  her  as  much  of  our  story  as  I 
considered  necessary.  My  confidence  in  her 
was  amply  repaid,  and  in  all  my  memories 
of  those  awfiil  days  she  has  a  grateful  and 
enduring  place.  But  in  spite  of  our  care  and 
thought  the  darkness  settled  gradually  over 
your  cottage.  Each  day  you  drew  further 
away  from  the  world,  and  each  day  seemed 
to  add  something  ineffable  to  the  wondrous 
beauty  of  your  face. 


126  cBupi^rojStne  ant» 

During  the  early  evening  of  one  of  those 
last  days,  I  gave  you  the  promise  of  which 
this  book  is  the  attempted  fulfillment.  All 
that  day  I  had  been  in  a  state  known  to 
others  who  have  lived  through  a  period  of  pro- 
tracted suffering,  a  state  of  almost  complete 
forgetfulness;  or  perhaps  "  aloofness  "  would 
be  the  closer  term.  It  seemed  as  if  your 
dying  was  to  affect  not  me,  but  some  other 
person  whom  I  did  not  exactly  know;  and 
that  I  was  a  spectator  again — as  on  so  many 
other  occasions — of  another's  sorrow.  There 
was  a  vague,  restless  desire  to  know  who  it 
was  that  would  be  sorry  when  you  were  gone, 
so  that  I  might  offer  what  comfort  I  could, 
and  so  ease  the  strange  pain  at  my  own  heart. 
I  saw  a  lady  strolling  languidly  down  by  the 
beach,  and  I  wondered  had  she  stayed  just 
to  see  the  end — dear,  sad  woman  !  I  stopped 
a  gentleman  as  he  was  passing  me  on  the  hotel 
stairs  to  ask  him  if  he  would  be  very  sorrow- 
stricken  when  Euphrosyne  died.  He  stared 
hard  at  me  for  a  few  moments,  not  compre- 
hending, and  believing  me  to  be  demented ; 
for  of  course  he  had  never  heard  of  you  by 
that  name.     Then,  as  the  thought   struck 


l^er  ''  (0olDen  13od6  "  1 27 

him,  he  said  compassionately  —  may  God 
reward  him ! 

"  Ah !  the  young  lady  at  the  cottage  !  Is 
she  so  ill  ?  .  .  .  Yes,  I  shall  be  sorry.  .  .  . 
Poor  fellow ! " 

So  it  continued  throughout  most  of  the 
day ;  even  in  one  of  my  early  visits  to  you 
I  sorely  puzzled  the  nurse  by  saying  that  I 
was  going  to  meet  the  train  because  some  one 
might  come  who  loved  you,  and  I  wanted  to 
tell  them  myself  how  matters  were.  But  as 
I  opened  the  little  white  gate  in  the  evening, 
the  whole  situation  flashed  back  upon  me, 
and  1  knew  it  was  I  who  needed  comforting, 
and  there  was  none  to  comfort  me.  A  shrill 
bird  or  two  busied  themselves  in  the  garden, 
making  faint  trials  of  fresh  love-songs  for 
the  autumn  ;  and  their  very  unconsciousness 
of  the  presence  of  so  great  a  sorrow  as  mine 
seemed  needlessly  cruel.  Nature  now  was 
no  longer  accordant.  For  some  inscrutable 
reason  I  must  be  hateful  to  her.  I  wondered 
indifferently  what  I  could  have  done  that 
nature  should  set  her  birds  to  mock  me;  but 
I  was  too  dejected  to  seek  long  for  an  answer. 

This  sudden  return  to  the  consciousness 


1 28  cBupl^rojSvne  anD 

of  my  own  place  among  the  things  of  sorrow 
unfitted  me  for  your  presence ;  and  for  the 
first  and  only  time  I  was  wholly  demoralized. 
I  knelt  at  your  bedside,  regardless  of  every- 
thing, and  with  your  delicate  hand  in  mine, 
sobbed  out  all  my  grief.  What  could  I  do 
when  you  were  gone  ?  .  .  .  Why  had  we 
ever  met  ?  .  .  .  What  was  the  use  of  love 
like  ours,  to  end  so  soon  ?  .  .  .  Better  far 
not  to  have  loved !  .  .  .  Better  to  have 
gone  through  life  with  my  first  loneliness 
than  to  have  this  awful,  second  loneliness 
surrounding  me  forever !  .  .  .  No !  God 
could  not  be  good  as  men  said.  ...  It 
was  all  an  illusion. 

And  you  answered  me  :  "  Nay,  my  dear, 
dear  husband  !  What  you  are  saying  is  not 
the  truth.  The  truth  lies  elsewhere.  Sit 
here  upon  my  bed  and  raise  me  a  little,  and 
I  will  talk  with  you." 

So  I  lifted  you  up  and  sat  beside  you, 
leaning  back  so  that  I  could  support  you. 
And  your  tired  head  rested  on  my  shoulder 
as  you  spake  with  me,  pausing  now  and  again 
to  rest  or  to  find  the  word  you  wanted. 

"  I  do  not  understand  many  things,  dear, 


1$tt  ^^d^oltien  13006"  1 29 

for  God  keeps  His  own  counsel  until  the 
'fulness  of  time.'  Pain  and  sorrow  have 
ever  been  most  awful  mysteries  to  me,  and 
no  solution  the  world  has  yet  heard  is  alto- 
gether satisfactory.  I  do  not  think  that  any 
perfect  solution  will  ever  be  written  down ; 
for  the  heart  knows  so  much  more  than  it 
can  express.  Once  (when  father  died,  it 
was)  I  rebelled  as  you  are  rebelling  now, 
and  for  many  weeks  my  heart  was  hardened 
against  God.  I  could  not  think  of  Him  as 
the  Living  Father,  sorrowing  for  His  child's 
sorrow;  rather  He  seemed  an  ineluctable 
Power  set  in  wilful  antagonism  to  me,  caring 
nothing  for  my  loneliness.  By  and  by  I 
found  others  who  also  suffered,  and  in  min- 
istering to  them  my  own  hurt  was  healed, 
how  I  cannot  explain.  And  now,  although 
there  have  been  all  these  months  of  separa- 
tion, I  am  glad  of  those  beautiful  talks  and 
journeyings  we  had  once  together.  And  O 
my  husband,  you  have  filled  these  last  days 
of  my  earthly  life  with  a  radiance  and  a  joy 
that  I  never  looked  for  nor  imagined ! " 
Here  came  a  long  pause,  in  which  we  gazed 
out  of  the  window  at  the  white  sails  of  a  boat 


13°  €up]^ro)Stne  and 

that  seemed  to  be  drifting  helplessly  far  out 
at  sea.  We  watched  it  until,  as  the  sun 
moved  away  from  it,  the  sails  lost  their  ex- 
ceeding whiteness,  sinking  to  a  dull  grey  that 
troubled  the  senses.  You  turned  away  from 
the  darkening  picture,  and  looked  straight 
into  my  eyes.  "  Some  day,"  you  said,  "  it 
may  be  soon,  or  it  may  be  after  long  years, 
you  also  will  be  wholly  glad  for  what  has 
been.  I  have  said  this  to  you  before,  I 
know,  but  I  am  always  thinking  it.  You 
will  no  longer  say  that  it  is  a  mere  poetic 
sentimentalism,  but  will  recognise  as  the 
soul's  expression  of  its  deepest  truth,  that — 

"  *  'Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all.* 

"Pain  and  sorrow  and  separation  are  real 
things,  but  so  also,  my  husband,  are  love  and 
faith ;  and  these  remain.  When  the  pain  has 
been  numbed,  and  the  sorrow  assuaged  by 
time,  and  separation  seems  not  the  despairing 
thing  it  is  to-day,  then  love  will  be  more 
beautiful  than  ever,  more  cherished  than 
ever.  I  wish  I  could  say  this  better,  dear ! 
But  sometime  you  will  know  what  I  mean." 


i^er  ^^d^olDtn'Boofe"  131 

You  were  silent,  and  I  played  absently  with 
your  lovely  hair,  and  kissed  your  forehead 
and  your  fingers.  In  a  little  while  you  spake 
again,  making  me  promise  that,  when  the  day 
came  in  which  I  could  believe  and  under- 
stand what  you  had  said,  I  would  tell  men 
everywhere  that  God  was  good  both  in  His 
giving  and  in  His  taking  away ;  that  pessi- 
mism was  an  abnormal  result  of  eccentric 
speculation;  that  there  was  no  waste  in  love 
nor  in  life — both  would  justify  themselves  in 
all  circumstances  if  only  we  would  be  passive 
and  teachable. 

So  the  days  came  unwelcomed,  and  passed 
uncounted ;  for  as  you  became  weaker,  night 
and  day  were  as  one  to  us  who  watched  and 
waited.  We  walked  about  the  cottage  very 
softly,  and  spake  to  each  other  in  sad  whis- 
pers, smiling  only  when  in  your  room.  In- 
deed, the  one  bright  spot  in  that  whole  house 
was  where  you  were.  In  every  other  room 
desolation  and  gloom  sat  enthroned.  I  can- 
not say  that  either  the  little  golden-haired 
maid  or  I  was  brave,  neither  do  I  wish  to 
say  so.     The  vile  indifference  of  the  Stoic 


132  Cupi^roistne  ann 

must  be  an  abomination  to  the  hearts  of  those 
who  have  ever  truly  loved.  The  light  and 
glory  of  my  life  was  departing  ere  yet  I  had 
seen  its  fulness;  and  who  was  I  that  my 
heart  should  not  be  bowed  down  within  me, 
that  my  eyes  should  not  run  rivers  of  tears  ? 
It  was  the  tragedy  of  every  bereaved  house- 
hold being  enacted  anew,  and  its  daily  de- 
tails are  known,  alas!  to  millions  of  broken 
hearts.  And  brave  and  smiling  as  we  were 
in  your  presence,  in  our  hearts  sorrow  sat 
triumphant  and  made  cowards  of  us  all  when 
away  from  you. 

But  the  Sabbath  morning  came  at  last. 
You  had  lived  longer  than  I  had  dared  hope, 
and  during  the  Saturday  night  had  slept 
wonderfully  well,  and  your  sleep  prolonged 
itself  until  the  church-bells  rang  out  for  wor- 
ship. It  was  the  sound  of  the  bells  that  told 
me  it  was  the  Sabbath  day.  When  you 
awoke  I  was  standing  with  my  back  to  you 
looking  out  of  the  window,  and  the  sound  of 
your  voice  startled  me. 

"My  husband!  is  this  Sunday?"  you 
asked;  and  then  said,  "I  shall  be  with 
my    father   to-night.     Don't   you   think   it 


^tvmmnT5oor'  133 

is  beautiful  to  go  away  on  the  Sabbath 
day?" 

From  that  moment  you  began  to  sink 
rapidly,  speaking  but  little,  and  then  as  to 
yourself.  Occasionally  your  thoughts  wan- 
dered backwards  through  the  years,  and  we 
caught  the  word  "Wharfedale,"  and  knew 
you  were  with  your  father.  Then  again 
came  incoherent  sentences,  so  pitiful  for  us 
to  hear,  in  which  my  name  had  chief  place. 
Once  you  brightened  marvellously  for  a  few 
minutes.  It  was  when  the  little  children 
from  the  Painter's  Palette  brought  you  some 
fresh  blackberries — the  first  fruits  of  that 
season.  When  I  told  you  about  them,  you 
opened  your  eyes  and  smiled — ah!  my  Eu- 
phrosyne,  how  sadly!  a  mere  shadow  of  the 
old  joyous  smile. 

"  I  must  eat  .  .  .  one  .  .  .  just  one, 
.  .  .  for  it  is  .  .  .  their  love  -  offering," 
you  whispered. 

Then  when  I  gave  you  one,  you  said: 

"  Tell  them  it  was  .  .  .  good  .  .  .  and 
...    I  shall  not   .    .    .    forget." 

You  spoke  no  more  until  the  evening, 
but  lay  perfectly  quiet,  now  and  then  mov- 


1 34  €\xp\)vo^^nt 

ing  your  hand  along  the  coverlet  that  I  should 
take  it  into  mine.  In  the  afternoon  you  slept 
for  nearly  two  hours;  but  just  as  the  setting 
sun  cast  a  bar  of  golden  light  above  your 
head,  you  opened  your  eyes,  and  I  heard 
you  whisper. 

"My  husband  .  .  .  kiss  me;  ...  I 
...  am  going  ...  to  ...  to  my 
father.  .  .  .  We  will  wait  .  .  .  there  .  .  . 
for  you,  ,  .  .  and  then  the  .  .  .  house 
.  .  .  will  be  .  .  .  will  be  full.  .  .  . 
Good-night   .    .    .    my    .    .    .    beloved." 

The  last  few  words  were  scarcely  distin- 
guishable; and  as  I  pressed  a  long  kiss  upon 
your  pale  brow  you  parted  from  me, 

*' landing  on  some  quiet  shore, 
Where,  billows  never  break  nor  tempests  roar." 

When  again  I  dared  look  upon  your  face, 
the  old  smile  and  radiance  had  come  back  into 
it,  and  it  was  upon  the  dead  face  of  a  shining 
angel  that  I  gazed. 


Epilogue 


Cupi^rojs^ne 


137 


Epilogue 


O  Euphrosyne 
passed  behind 
the  "flaming 
barriers,"  and  I 
was  left  alone. 
In  the  days  im- 
mediately fol- 
lowing a  certain 
curious  torpor 
settled  upon 
my  heart  and  brain  which  I  mistook  for  the 
peace  of  which  she  had  spoken.  But  after 
all  the  last,  sad  duties  were  fulfilled,  and 
Euphrosyne  quietly  buried  on  the  crest  of  the 
mound  in  the  Painter's  Palette,  and  I  had 
returned  to  the  city  intending  to  take  up 
my  old  life  once  more,  I  found  how  im- 
possible was  the  attempt.  Only  a  few  weeks 
had  come  and  gone  since  I  had  left;  but 
between  then  and  now  yawned  a  vast  chasm 
which  no  endeavour  of  mine  could  bridge. 
My    old   life    had   vanished   as    completely 


138  Cupi^rojJ^ne  anD 

as  though  it  had  not  been,  and  the  new 
was  so  disorganised  and  troubled  that  any 
attempt  to  place  it  in  the  old  setting  was 
certain  to  end  disastrously.  So  within  two 
months  of  the  death  of  Euphrosyne  I  had 
sold  my  practice  to  my  assistant  and  had 
become  a  wanderer  on  the  face  of  the 
earth. 

To  detail  my  sorrow  in  the  ears  of  a  de- 
sentimentalised  age  would  only  be  to  court 
mockery  and  incredulity,  for  it  is  so  rare 
a  thing  to-day  to  find  any  retention  of  be- 
lief in  the  constancy  of  human  affection. 
I  must  fain  content  myself  with  the  bare 
assertion  that  wherever  I  went  —  alike  in 
the  deserts  and  forests  of  Africa,  the  steppes 
of  Russia,  or  the  crowded  cities  of  the  con- 
tinent— the  shining  eyes  of  my  dead  Euphros- 
yne gazed  out  upon  me  mournfully;  and 
neither  the  grandeur  of  this  scene,  nor  the 
delicate  various  beauty  of  that,  brought  any 
permanent  consolation  to  my  lonely  spirit. 
Perhaps  for  two  days  together  a  wonderful 
peace  would  surround  me,  only  to  be  shat- 
tered on  the  third  day  by  a  renewed  and 
appalling  sense  of  desolateness. 


I^tt  ^^  cI5DlDen  15006 "  139 

In  the  winter  of  the  year  1890  I  was  in 
Paris,  that  gayest  of  all  gay  cities ;  and  if  any 
kindly  reader  cares  to  understand  the  con- 
dition of  my  heart  at  that  time,  he  may  be 
able  to  do  so  by  reading  the  following  son- 
net which  was  written  there.  I  called  it 
"A  Dream  Sonnet,"  and  I  insert  it  here 
not  that  you  should  criticise,  but  only  that 
you  may  know  something,  if  you  choose, 
of  the  sad  human  soul  that  composed  it, 
and  know  also  that  the  peace  of  my  present 
life  came  not  without  struggle : 

I  dreamt  last  night  of  dead  Euphrosyne: 
That  we  in  great  amazement  stood  beside 
The  unforgotten,  fragrant  sea.    A  bride 

Was  she,  and  I  her  mate.    A  living  ray 

Of  gold  and  amethyst  about  her  lay, 
But  cast  no  Shadow  anywhere.    I  cried 
Exultant:  "See,  dark  Fear  is  gone — has  died!" 

And  knelt  upon  the  wave-ribbed  sand  to  pray. 

But  lo!  these  over-tense  and  silent  years. 
So  over-freighted  with  tempestuous  grief. 

Remain.     Swift  love  upon  my  furrowed  brow 

Hath  set  no  crown.   The  aching  morn  appears, 
And  I,  from  night  and  night's  illusions  brief, 

Awake  to  day,  to  life's  exhausted  Now! 


HO  €up]^ro0^ne  and 

My  wandering  life  and  the  continued  brood- 
ing over  the  past  had  told  so  severely  upon 
my  health  that  when  I  reached  London  in 
August  of  the  following  year  it  was  only 
to  fall  a  victim  to  brain  fever  which  had 
threatened  me  on  several  occasions.  For 
weeks  I  lay  hovering  between  life  and  death, 
longing  with  vehement  passion  in  conscious 
moments  for  death  which  delayed  irreso- 
lutely. But  in  the  end  life  conquered,  and 
it  was  during  the  long  convalescence  which 
followed  that  the  peace  of  which  Euphros- 
yne  had  spoken  became  possible  to  me. 
Like  her  I  grew  conscious  of  other  sorrows, 
even  greater  and  more  poignant  than  mine, 
and  I  remembered  her  beautiful  words; 
so  as  strength  returned  I  set  myself  right 
heartily  to  the  work  of  ministering,  and  Love 
justified  herself  as  Euphrosyne  had  said. 

Let  a  man  become  truly  aware  of  the  silent 
"great  stream  of  human  tears  falling  always 
through  the  shadows  of  the  world";  let  him 
see  not  only  the  beauty  of  life  but  its  sor- 
rows —  the  more  sorrowful  because  so  inex- 
pressive—  then  one  of  two  things  happens: 
the  delicately  aspiring  sympathy  slumbering 


beneath  the  human  bosom  bursts  forth  into 
flowers  and  fruit,  wholesomely  fragrant  and 
sweet;  or  the  piteous  weight  of  his  own 
and  the  world's  woe  crushes  the  frail  rootlet 
which  hereafter  can  bring  naught  to  surface 
but  the  thorn.  A  vivid  realization  of  the 
sorrowful  accentuations  of  life  makes  a  man 
either  saviour  or  cynic:  temperamental  pecu- 
liarities contributing  largely  to  either  result. 
If  he  be  docile  and  receptive,  taught  Euphros- 
yne,  such  realization  will  be  effective  in  the 
creation  of  those  beautiful  things  which  make 
for  perfect  life :  and  after  long  struggle  I  also 
at  last  entered  into  the  truth. 

So  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  year  the  baptism 
of  sorrow  that  had  descended  on  me  had 
finished  its  work.  I  saw  that  Euphrosyne 
had  been  allowed  to  cross  my  life-line  and 
halt  for  ever  so  brief  a  moment  to  minister 
to  me,  and  I  am  richer  to-day  because  I  have 
known  her  and  loved  her :  considering  my- 
self, because  of  her,  to  be  still  in  God's 
debt.  For  Euphrosyne  is  more  real  to  me 
to-day  than  in  the  fair  days  of  her  flesh, 
and  the  shining  of  her  eyes  and  the  shining 
of  her  face  make  my  morning  every  day. 


PRINTED  BY  R.  R.  DONNELLEY 
AND  SONS  COMPANY,  AT  THE 
LAKESIDE  PRESS,  CHICAGO,  ILL. 


?7^^^ 


A    000  687  387     1 


